


Heart of Glass

by tiranog



Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-13 08:41:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 38,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11756154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiranog/pseuds/tiranog
Summary: The events of Some Like It Red lead Benny and Ray down an unexpected path.





	Heart of Glass

**Author's Note:**

> This story was first published in the zine Thank You Kindly in the late 90s.

The drive way to St. Fortunada's School for Girls looked like a police garage at the moment.  There were at least a half dozen squad cars, a paddy wagon, and two ambulances crammed into the stately entrance.  The vehicles still had their lights flashing, but thankfully, the sirens had been silenced.

 

Walking through the melee back to his classic Riviera with his unofficial partner beside him, Detective Ray Vechhio shook his head at the confusion of light, police officers, and school girls.  This was certainly one high school dance that the students of St. Fortunada's wouldn't soon be forgetting.

 

Who would have thought it?  A king's ransom of jewels, art deco pieces, and mobster memorabilia hidden in a secret chamber in the cellar of a girls' school.  If he'd read this in a novel, Ray wouldn't have believed it.  Once again, he was struck by the thought that fact truly was stranger than fiction.

 

Of course, that old adage pretty well summed up his life since a certain displaced Mountie had taken to hanging around with him.  In the last year and a half, Ray Vecchio had followed his quixotic constable into a series of adventures that made SPIDERMAN look tame.  Without benefit of super-powers, Benton Fraser leaped off tall buildings in a single bound, out-ran speeding get-away vehicles, rescued cats from trees, escorted old people across streets, and stood up to armed felons without even a flak jacket between himself and semi-automatics.  All Benny had to protect him out there in Chicago's mean streets were his ideals, his little red Mountie suit, a deaf wolf, and his faith in his all-too-fallible partner.

 

Vecchio still didn't understand why Fraser had signaled him out for this honor. There had to be a thousand other cops in Chicago with better arrest records and better manners, but Benny still spent every waking minute when he was off-duty from the Consulate helping Vecchio track down wrong-doers.  Ray wasn't complaining.  Since Fraser had come into his life, police work had been reduced to a simple formula - they got a case; they closed said case with an arrest.  It had been months since he'd had forty-one unsolved crimes sitting on his desk.  Benny's methods might be a little unorthodox, but Ray wasn't about to argue with the results.

 

Like this last case - which hadn't even been a crime at first.  With all the murders, thefts, and rapes in Chicago, one high school girl playing hooky hardly rated a report these days, let alone an undercover setup.  Hell, the school girl, Selene, hadn't even been officially reported missing. Ray’s old girlfriend, Sister Annie McCray, had just asked the detective to look into it off the record. 

 

Ray knew that some of his former partners might have helped him ask around after the missing girl, but not a one of them would have taken helping him to quite the extreme Constable Benton Fraser had.  He didn't even think that his first partner, Laurie Zayler, would have gone in undercover just to help him out.

 

If he lived to be a hundred, Ray knew he would never forget the shock he'd experienced the other day when that tall, buxomy knockout at his desk had turned out to be Fraser.

 

Ray smiled as he glanced Benny's way and caught sight of the mascara and eye shadow that Fraser had once again forgotten to remove in the rush to don his uniform before backup arrived.  Struck by how well the makeup accentuated Fraser's bright blue eyes, Ray playfully commented, "You know, Benny, you weren't a bad looking woman."

 

Seeming genuinely delighted by the compliment, Fraser's entire face lit up as he replied, "Well, thank you, Ray."

 

Realizing that he'd pretty much just confessed how he'd liked the way his best friend looked in a dress and thinking how his words must have sounded, the abruptly self-conscious detective quickly back-pedaled, "Of course, you weren't exactly my type, either, you know."

 

The smile dying from his lips, Benny asked in a tone that might either have been patient or lightly offended, "Well, what exactly is your type, Ray?"

 

Put on the spot, Ray attempted to explain, "I like a woman who's kind and honest, with a good sense of humor."

 

"What?  I don't have those qualities?"  The offense was no longer underplayed. 

 

Ray could tell that Fraser was miffed.  He gave a mental groan.  Now he'd really done it.  Fraser hid it damn well, but beneath that easy-going, unassuming veneer, Benny was vainer about some things than Frannie. 

 

"No, no, you do," Ray quickly assured.  "I just like a woman who's... you know, a woman."

 

Six seconds of pensive silence, then Fraser came back with, "Oh, that's...that's picky, Ray."

 

Sometimes Ray just didn't understand how his friend's mind worked at all.  What straight guy wouldn't understand what he'd been trying to say with that declaration, Ray wondered.  He came up with the answer he always did to that particular question - Constable Benton Fraser.  Benny just wasn't wired the same as the rest of the male population, which was probably why Fraser had been able to carry out his most recent charade as well as he had.  Ray didn't know another man who could have pulled this assignment off.

 

Recognizing that he'd just mortally insulted the friend who had shaven his legs and dressed in drag for nothing but his sake, Ray figured that it wasn't any surprise that Fraser would be a little touchy over the entire subject. Wincing at the mistake he'd made, Ray pleaded, "Oh, don't get in a snit!"

 

Great choice of words, Vecchio, he sneered at himself as he watched his less than diplomatic response push every one of Fraser's buttons.  They just knew each other too damn well.

 

His face closing down, Fraser opened the passenger door of the green Riviera and motioned the wolf waiting inside into the back seat.  Sliding in, Benny tensely denied, "I'm not."

 

"Well good.' Ray replied with as much sweetness as he could, hoping if he played it light, Fraser would let it pass.

 

No such luck.  Benny sounded as huffy as an affronted maiden aunt as he snipped back, "Well, fine."

 

Opening the driver's door, Ray attempted to change the subject with, "So, what are you doing after work?"

 

Fraser didn't even glance at him.  The made-up face kept staring straight ahead out the windshield as Benny firmly announced. "Nothing with you."

 

Still trying to jolly his partner out of the ridiculous snit Fraser was in, Ray playfully teased, "You're so sensitive," then clapped his cold hands together to warm them before he started the car.

 

Thankfully, there was no immediate response.

 

Ray warmed the engine for three or four minutes, then carefully steered his baby clear of all the maniac squad cars that were intent on scratching her new coat of paint.

 

At first, the quality of the silence on the other side of the leather seat didn't register.  They were five minutes down the pitch black suburban road before Ray finally started to feel the frostbite stinging his right side.  "Oh, come on, Benny, give me a break."

 

"What?"  Fraser asked, in that same miffed tone.

 

"Enough with the silent treatment already."

 

"I don't know what you're talking about, Ray."

 

For a guy who had more trouble telling a lie than George Washington, Fraser could be downright deceptive at times. 

 

"I hate these head games you play.  If you're pissed off at me, just come out and say it, would ya?"

 

"Head games?"  Fraser blankly questioned.

 

"Yeah, head games.  That thing you do when you're mad at me and won't admit it."

 

"Why would I be mad at you, Ray?" Benny asked so sweetly that Ray really wanted to just haul off and bash him one.

 

"You sound like a shrink for God's sake.  You're mad at me because I told you that I liked a woman to be a woman."

 

"This is a ridiculous thing to be arguing about, Ray." Benny said in that tone of hard-won patience that always sent Ray’s own temper meter straight off the scale.  Nothing drove him crazier than being patronized, and, although Fraser didn't intend things that way, that was very often how his friend came across.

 

"I agree," he said tightly.

 

"Good," Benny responded in that same affronted tone.

 

Ready to allow his volcanic temper to erupt, Ray glared over at his recalcitrant partner...only to feel his ire evaporate as he took in the handsome, stony profile.

 

Benny was in full sulk mode, staring moodily out the passenger window.  When they'd first met, this childish habit had gotten on Ray’s nerves no end.  Coming from his boisterous Italian family, Ray preferred his beefs out in the open, where they could be dealt with.

 

It was only as he had come to know Benny really well that Ray began to see that the man only got this way when Fraser's emotions were running high, those rare occasions when Benny couldn't maintain that stiff-upper-lip crap that someone had drummed into him at such an early age that it had become a way of life.  It wasn't a crime to have feelings, but someone had made Benny think it was.  Ray was no shrink, but he knew that repressing so much couldn't be healthy, which was why he worked so hard at getting Saint Fraser to break down and admit he was human like the rest of the world.

 

But now wasn't the time to push, Ray recognized.  It might be a stupid thing to argue about, but he'd obviously hurt Benny's feelings with his wise crack - again.  "Benny?"

 

"Yes?" Fraser didn't even glance at him.

 

"I'm sorry, okay?"

 

Those expressive eyes turned his way.  The guarded quality to them ripped right through Ray.

 

"For?" Fraser questioned, not making it the least bit easy for the detective.

 

The `for hurting your feelings' he wanted to say was definitely out.  Ray answered with a less truthful, but no less valid, "I never even thanked you for going undercover to help me out."

 

"You don't have to thank me, Ray," Benny dismissed, nowhere near as barricaded as before.

 

"Yes, I do."  Ray had learned a long time ago that observing the amenities was the one sure way to get behind his friend's guards.  Benny was a sucker for politeness and proper social protocol.  Of course, half the time Ray didn't know what either were in a given situation, so it made their relationship a little difficult.  But in this case, he knew that he was in the wrong here.  "You put yourself out for me and I didn't even thank you.  I still don't know why you even did it..." Ray finally gave voice to the question that had been gnawing at his guts since he'd seen Benny in that blue dress at his desk.

 

"You gave your word to Sister Annie that you would help her."

 

"You shaved your legs and put on a dress just to keep me from breaking a promise?" Ray gaped.

 

"Promises are important, Ray," Fraser said in the soft, patient tone he used only with him.

 

God...he'd never met anyone like Benny.  One minute he'd want to kill the guy, and then the next, Fraser would say or do something that totally derailed his anger.  Like this. 

 

Ray gulped down his own emotional response to that quiet assertion.  The truly incredible part was that he knew if his word had been given to a wino or junkie and not a nun, Fraser would have done exactly the same thing.

 

"Yeah, well... I do appreciate it, even if I didn't show it right before."

 

"Thank you, Ray." 

 

There, Ray thought, absurdly glad.  Benny was beaming bright as a child again.

 

"No, thank you," Ray insisted, tickled so much by his partner's mood change that he was grinning like a half-wit himself.

 

"You're welcome."

 

Wanting to maintain the good feelings and needing to make up for his earlier blunder, Ray asked, "Think you could change your mind and do something with me tonight?"

 

Fraser's smile dimmed the tiniest bit at the reference to their earlier argument.  "What did you have in mind?"

 

"I wanta make it up to you," Ray said.

 

"That's unnecessary, Ray.  You've already apologized."

 

"No.  I insulted you before and I had no right doing that after all you'd done for me."

 

"Ray, you didn't..." Benny sought to deny his feelings again.

 

"Yes, I did.  What's more - I lied to you," Ray admitted, wondering if Canadian was infectious.  Before Benny, he never would have come clean like that, not where his machismo was concerned.  But it was hard to keep up such posturing when it was hurting the person who'd put his own masculinity totally aside on Ray's behalf.

 

"You lied to me?"  Fraser repeated in that tone of total incomprehension that was so very endearing.

 

Soon after meeting Constable Fraser, Ray had realized that Benny always thought his friends better than they actually were.  Because he was faultlessly honest himself, Fraser never suspected that his comrades would be anything less, and was therefore constantly being taken to the cleaners.  Ray couldn't even count the number of appliances Benny had borrowed from his neighbors that suddenly became defective in his keeping and needed fixing.  Lord knew, the distrusting cop had paid for enough of the repairs himself.  But even though he knew what was going on, Ray had never gone out of his way to purposefully disillusion his trusting friend.  He figured that Chicago would do it soon enough to Benny.  There was no reason for him to hasten the process.

 

And, somehow, his reluctance to shatter his best friend's rose-tinted illusions had made him a better person. Without conscious decision, Ray often found himself struggling to live up to Benny's expectations.

 

"Yeah, I lied - before when I said that...well, when I was being too picky.  You were a knockout as a woman and I'd be proud to be seen in public with you," Ray said in a rush.

 

If he were with any other guy, Ray knew he'd be picking his teeth off the car floor about now.

 

But Benny, being who he was, didn't take umbrage at the confession.  Instead, a doubtful expression puckered Fraser's perfect features.  "You don't have to say that just to make me feel better, Ray."

 

"I'm not.  I swear.  You made a great woman."   

 

Any other man would have been freaked out by his statement, but Benny lit up at the bizarre compliment like the angel on top of a Christmas tree. 

 

The Mountie's fair cheeks actually turned pink with pleasure.  "Thank you, Ray."

 

"You're welcome.  So, what do you say?  You wanna go out?"

 

"Where?"

 

Inspired, Vecchio suggested, "Well, I promised Brenda Lewissy I'd take her to Mirage's for dinner if she went undercover at St. Fortunada's for me.  It's only fair that you receive the same reward, since you did such a stand-up job."

 

"That's very extravagant, Ray." 

 

"Hey, we're celebrating.  And it's my treat, for a job well done," Ray insisted.

 

Although Fraser had never said as much, it hadn't taken Ray long to figure out that the Consulate wasn't paying his friend a living wage.  Benny insisted that he'd chosen to live in that rat trap of an apartment because it was close to work, but Ray had found out through casual conversation that the Consulate hadn't upped Fraser's salary when he'd moved to the States.  Due to the circumstances surrounding his transfer to Chicago, the RCMP was probably hoping Fraser would quit, for no one could live on what they made in the Yukon in the inner city - except perhaps Benton Fraser. 

 

It was just another example of Benny's making the best of an unpleasant situation.  Just thinking about what Benny must have paid for all those women's clothes that he'd only wear once made him feel guilty all over again.

 

"I - all right," Fraser agreed.

 

"Great." Ray grinned.  Struck by sudden inspiration, he asked, "Hey, do you still have your teaching clothes with you?"

 

"Yes, they're in the back.  I've been trying to decide what to do with them.  I'd like to donate them to charity, but the explanations as to why I have them in the first place might prove rather awkward."

 

"Don't worry about it.  I'll put them in the clothes box for the poor at St. Michael's.  But I was just thinking.  Before you give them away..." Ray faltered, uncertain how to phrase his hare-brained idea.  He'd already offended Fraser once tonight.  He didn't want to compound his mistake, and yet...the idea was just too good to pass up.

 

"Yes?"

 

Casting his fate to the proverbial winds, Ray took a deep breath and hesitantly suggested, "I was just thinking that to make amends for insulting you earlier, I should prove to you that I'm not as superficial as you think."

 

"I never said you were superficial," Benny quickly protested.

 

"Okay, that I'm not as picky as you think."

 

"Enough said.  You've already apologized for that."

 

"Yeah, well, I don't feel that it's enough and the only way I'm gonna feel better is if you let me prove to you that I'm not picky."

 

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Ray.  I already said I'd go out to dinner with you," Fraser admitted, with that bewildered expression he often got when confronted by things completely outside of his understanding.

 

"I wanna take Miss Fraser out to dinner to make it up to her," Ray announced, feeling like he'd just pulled the pin out of a live grenade and tossed it into the car between them.

 

"You what?" Benny simply looked at him as if he'd made the suggestion in some foreign language.

 

"Let me take the lady who helped me out of a jam out on the town.  Okay?"

 

"Do you mean that you want me to...put those clothes on again?"  Fraser asked, sounding as if he simply couldn't process what Vecchio was telling him.

 

"Yeah.  That way you'll get some use out of all that money you spent."  The excuse sounded lame to his own ears.

 

"Ray, that's...that's..." his honest friend stuttered for an appropriate come back, but for once Fraser seemed speechless.

 

"It's no stranger than your putting the dress on in the first place," Ray argued.

 

"But why would you want me to do that?"

 

"I don't know.  It just seemed...like a good way to prove to you that I appreciated what you did," Ray tried to explain.

 

"You think that embarrassing yourself by being seen with me in public will prove that?" Fraser questioned.

 

"Who said anything about embarrassing myself?" Ray asked, genuinely confused.

 

"Before you said that you preferred a woman to be-"

 

Ray cut into Fraser's sentence before they could get back on that original trouble starter.  "Like you said, Benny, you're kind and honest, with a good sense of humor.  Who could ask for anything more?"

 

"But I'm not a real woman, Ray."

 

"I know that.  I'm not asking you to dress in drag for the rest of your life, just for tonight, to prove that I'm not a complete ingrate."

 

"Drag?" Fraser asked, as innocent of the concept as he'd been when Ray had thrown that line about being a transvestite at him on one of their very first cases.

 

"Yeah, it's what they call it when guys dress up in women's clothes.  I guess they don't do that in Muckayutluck, hah?"

 

"It's Totayuttuk.  And, no, as a rule, men don't dress up in women's clothes.  Although, as I mentioned before, in certain tribes the practice was considered almost sacred.  And I did have an uncle who was wearing nothing but a woman's silk panties when he was killed by a ton of cabbages in an unfortunate accident while..."

 

Knowing if he let the story go two syllables further he'd spend the next hour trying to untangle cabbages, corpses, and Innuit trivia, Ray quickly interjected, "Enough already with the anecdotes.  Will you do it?"

 

"My wearing this dress to dinner will somehow make you feel better about our..."

 

"Fight?" Ray supplied.

 

"Misunderstanding," Benny firmly corrected.

 

"Yeah, it'll give me a chance to show you that I'm not a complete jerk."

 

"This is not a practical joke?" Benny tested.

 

"Huh?  What are you talking about?"

 

"You are not going to take me somewhere where a crowd of our associates are waiting; are you?"

 

Ray looked over at the question.  Fraser's stare was level and piercing.

 

"I would never do that to you, Benny.  Hell, I'm the one asking you to put the dress back on, for Christ's sake."  Self-conscious, he looked back at the road, as much to escape the penetrating gaze as to watch the empty highway.

 

Sometimes he wished that he could read Fraser better than he did, but that bland expression Benny wore most of the time was faultless.

 

There was a pause, then Fraser said, "All right."

 

"You'll do it?" Ray was shocked.

 

"You asked it of me, Ray.  I'll do it.  It's not a big deal."

 

Maybe not for Fraser, but Ray didn't know another straight man on the planet who'd get back into that dress without a life or death reason.  That Benny would do it simply because his best friend asked it of him was...humbling.

 

What was even more disturbing was the fact that Ray didn't really know why he'd asked Benny to dress up like a woman again.  All he knew was that he really wanted a chance to make amends to Fraser for insulting him earlier, but...was that really an excuse to ask your best friend to dress up in drag?  Everything Vecchio had been taught in his life said ‘no’, but his heart said ‘do it’.  Besides, if Fraser wasn't uncomfortable wearing the dress, what possible harm could there be in it?

 

His better sense was cautioning him that there was something dangerous in this, but since he couldn't pinpoint what the threat was, Ray let it pass.

 

"Thank you, Benny," he said at last.

 

"You're welcome, Ray." Fraser smiled.  "If you'd be so kind as to pull over into the next petrol dealer, I'll change."

 

They'd been together so long that Vecchio automatically translated the Canadian for ‘gas station’ without bothering to question it.

 

Unable to believe that his partner was actually going along with this lunacy, Ray nodded.  "Sure thing.  I think there's one at the next corner."

 

Sure enough, the red, white, and blue neon Exxon sign blazed at them as they rounded the bend.  Once Ray had stopped the car in front of the pump to fuel up, Fraser took his black gym bag from the back seat and disappeared into the uni-sex bathroom without a word.

 

An inquiring canine "Yerrr-rrreww?" emerged from the back seat.

 

As he held the vibrating gas hose in the tank, Ray glanced through the back window.  Diefenbaker's warm brown gaze met his own as the wolf repeated that sound.  Damn, if there wasn't a question in those way too expressive orbs, Ray thought.  "You got something to say about it?"

 

Appearing almost sheepish, the wolf laid his chin against the back of the seat and went, "Rrrrmff..."

 

"I thought not." Ray shook his head and then grinned.  Christ, now he was having conversations with the damn dog!  What next?  Squatting by the road to taste the local mud?

 

While he waited back in the car, Ray wondered what his friend must think of him.  It was the weirdest request he had ever made in his life.  There wasn't another person in the world Ray could even imagine asking such a thing of, not with half a chance of surviving, but Benny acted like wearing that dress was no different than helping Ray haul a pool table up from the basement.  Fraser hadn't understood why Ray would go to all that trouble just to use the table for only a single week, but like tonight, Benny had humored him.  There truly was no one like Benton Fraser in the entire world, Ray affectionately acknowledged.

 

Precisely eight minutes later, the white bathroom door on the side of the building opened and Miss Fraser emerged.

 

In his red wig, teal raincoat, and high heels, the Mountie should have looked ridiculous, but somehow, the dignity with which Fraser carried himself made laughter the last thing on his mind.  As Ray watched the tall redhead approach his car, he couldn't help but remember how Lieutenant Welsh had been blown away by Miss Fraser's initial appearance at the station.  Ray hadn't told his boss - or anyone else, for that matter - that the long-legged, soft-spoken knockout at his desk had been Fraser.  The lieutenant had been really interested in the muscular woman, and, watching Benny walk up to the car now, Ray could almost understand why.

 

There was nothing campy or demeaning about Fraser's portrayal of a woman.  Benny moved with an almost regal grace and inherent dignity that commanded complete respect.  The poise and presence with which Fraser conducted himself seemed to say that the over-sized woman would accept nothing other than utter respect.

 

The disguised Mountie, made two inches taller by his heels, stopped beside the passenger door and just stood there, waiting. 

 

"Ray,"  Fraser's voice softened to feminine range as Benny called him.

 

Not understanding at first, Ray finally remembered his manners.  "Oh, sorry.  Be right there."

 

Ray quickly hopped back out of the car and ran around the front to open the passenger door.

 

"Thank you." Benny said, sliding in with a swish of silky skirts and burst of perfume.

 

His senses swimming under the sweet olfactory barrage, Ray shook himself back to reality.  God, when Benny did anything, he really went all out.  Hose, perfume, heels, earrings, make up...most of the women Ray dated weren't put together this well.  Nor did they have the kind of class Benny did.

 

Shaking his head at the weird thought, Ray quickly returned to his own side of the car.  Taking his place behind the wheel, he smiled over at his companion.  Fraser was sitting straight and stiff as a corpse beside him.  The perfect posture wasn't really unusual for the by-the-book Mountie, but in his current garb, Fraser's familiar straight-backed pose made his false breasts stick out to a degree that would have made Dolly Parton jealous.

 

"Ah, can I ask you a question?" Ray said, pulling out of the gas station.

 

"Of course, Ray," Benny replied.  Since they were alone in the car, Fraser was using his normal voice.  It was sort of distracting coming out of the very feminine figure beside him.

 

"When you were putting this costume together, why did you make the breasts so large?"

 

"Oh, that.  Well, you see, I just estimated the proportions from the rest of my measurements.  A woman of my height and breadth would usually have a large bosom. Originally, I tried a smaller sized bra, but I still appeared too masculine.  With the larger bust-line, it seemed unlikely that people would be checking my neck for an Adam's Apple.  I didn't overdo it; did I, Ray?  Do they appear artificial?"

 

Smiling at the ridiculous concern, Ray assured, "Take my word for it, Benny.  They pass muster.  No one's gonna be checking you out for an Adam’s apple."

 

"Oh, that's a relief."

 

Out of the corner of his eye, Ray watched his friend smooth down his skirt until it lay smooth against Fraser's thighs.  Damn, but those shapely legs looked real...

 

Appalled by the bizarre train of thought, Ray concentrated on his driving.  Another ten minutes, and they should be at Mirage's.

 

"Ray?" The Mountie said softly a few moments later.

 

"Yeah, Benny?"

 

"Are you certain that you want to do this?  You seem uneasy." Fraser remarked.

 

"No, I'm fine," he answered too fast, wondering why he suddenly felt so tense.  He'd asked Fraser to put on the damn dress, for Christ's sake.  Why was he suddenly so nervous about it?

 

"We don't have to go out, Ray," Benny offered in that almost-hurt tone of his.

 

"No, I wanna do this - for you.  I'm gonna give Miss Fraser the best night on the town she's ever had," Ray promised.

 

"Ray, Miss Fraser does not exist -"

 

"She does now," he interrupted.  "From this moment on, I'm just gonna pretend that you're Miss Fraser. Out of the kindness of her heart, she did this favor for someone she barely knew, so I'm taking her out to thank her.  Okay?"

 

"Ray..."

 

"Aw, come on, Benny.  Just play along with the game, okay?"

 

"Let me see if I understand you correctly," the oft-times pedantic voice went on to outline, "You don't want me to merely wear this dress; you want me to actively pretend that I am a woman, even when we are alone together?"

 

"Yeah.  I can't make it up to Miss Fraser if she isn't here for me to talk to; can I?" Ray reasoned.

 

"It sounds like a strange game, Ray."

 

"This is Chicago, Benny.  All we got is strange games.  So, will you play?"

 

Fraser shrugged.  "All right, Ray."

 

Grinning, Ray glanced over at his passenger, "Do you have a cold, Miss Fraser?"

 

"What?" Benny blinked.

 

"Your voice sounds deep, like you have a cold or something."

 

Fraser cleared his throat, then said in his soft female voice, "No, I just had a frog in my throat.  Is this better?"

 

It was only when Fraser answered him that Ray realized just how kinky the game he'd invented was.  Stunned that his straight-laced partner would actually play along with such a bizarre scenario, he nodded. "Yeah, you sound great now.  That dress is very becoming, by the way."

 

"Why, thank you, Detective Vecchio."

 

"Hey," Ray protested, "why are you calling me ‘Detective Vecchio’ all of a sudden?"

 

"You said that we barely knew each other, Ray," Fraser reminded in his normal voice.  Obviously, his astute partner was beginning to see the humorous potential of the situation.  The mischievous glint he caught in those bright blue eyes when he glanced over from his driving told Ray that his friend was really beginning to enjoy this.  "It would be very presumptuous of me to take such liberties with a new acquaintance.  Manners, Ray, manners."

 

"Oh, yeah, right.  Manners.  Well, Miss Fraser, we've known each other for almost two years in a working relationship.  This is the first opportunity we've had to get to know each other off duty.  I'd be pleased if you'd do me the honor of calling me by my given name.  It's ‘Ray’.  If you wouldn't think that was too forward, of course," Ray laid it on thicker than bugs on a bumper.

 

"It'd be my pleasure, Ray," Benny was quiet for a minute, staring out the front window at Chicago's skyline as they drove west on Lakeshore Drive.  After a pensive pause, the soft voice hesitantly asked, "This city of yours is quite beautiful by night.  Have you lived here long?"

 

God damn, Benny was playing along whole-heartedly!  Not wanting to discourage the tentative foray, Ray quickly replied, "My whole life.  My family lives in St. Michael's parish.  It's over that way." 

 

He gestured ahead of them in a western direction, where St. Michael's spire could be seen as a dark, skinny silhouette way off in the distance.

 

"Your family?  You're married, then?" 

 

Jeez, but Fraser was a fantastic actor when he put his mind to it.  Miss Fraser's voice held just the perfect degree of concern, the worried tone any woman might take at finding herself in a possibly compromising situation with a married man.

 

"Not any more.  She walked out on me five years ago.  I moved back into my parent's house."  Not wanting to have Benny ask those awkward questions that usually followed that statement, Ray outlined the family members now living at home.

 

"It sounds wonderful, having the whole family under one roof like that," Miss Fraser politely commented.

 

"It can be.  How `bout you?  Married?  Family?"

 

Benny was quiet for a second, then he said very lowly, "No, on both counts."

 

"I'm sorry."

 

"Don't be.  I have my work."

 

When he glanced over, Benny was looking out the window again, that sad-but-trying-to-fake-it expression shadowing his unaffected veneer.  Ray had been joking before when he'd called Benny sensitive, but truer words had never been spoken.

 

Forcing some cheer into his voice, Ray promised, "Well, tonight is for play, my lady.  I'm gonna give you a night on the town you're never going to forget."

 

Ray tensed a little, anxious about how that endearment would be taken, but Benny's full, pouty lips twisted up at the ends at the ‘my lady.’

 

"That's very kind of you, Ray," Miss Fraser replied, perfectly correct.

 

A comfortable silence settled between them as they turned south a short time later.   The Sears tower rose on their left.  The slick behemoth was lit up like the mother ship in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS and took up the entire night sky.  Benny craned his neck to look up at it from below as they passed, the long, straight locks of Fraser's wig falling half-way down his back as his chin tilted up to see.

 

Ray circumvented the busy downtown streets, half his attention on his driving, the rest on his quiet companion. At first he was concerned that Fraser was uncomfortable and regretting his decision to humor him.  But after a few moments of circumspect study, Ray decided that Benny was just absorbing the scenery. 

 

Neither of them got down to this part of town very often.  Whenever they ate out, it was usually someplace close to either of their homes, the station, or the Consulate.  This was tourist country down here, and Ray usually avoided it like the plague.

 

Finally, Mirage's came into sight.  Originally, the club had been a dock-side bar, frequented by sailors and stevedores.  Not the kind of place a person went to drink unless he was packing some heavy caliber backup.  And even then, getting out alive was still a fifty-fifty proposition.

 

About ten years ago, the old fisherman's bar had been condemned.  A goombah from the old neighborhood purchased the site, razed the ramshackle edifice, and built his dream club.  Now the place was all windows and mirrors. 

 

Lakeside, Mirages was a tower of glass, with barely enough concrete and wall to support all those windows.  From the water, it glowed like some kind of fairy-tale, jewel-studded castle.  Landside of the building, there were no windows at all, just gray unprepossessing concrete on the outside and floor to ceiling mirrors inside.

 

Ray had been here once or twice before, but not often. It was the kind of place you took a date to impress the hell out of her.

 

Ray pulled up to the valet lot on the side of the building.  The puzzled expression in his partner's eyes as they neared the windowless structure was priceless.

 

A low "Gerrrerr?" from the back seat temporarily distracted them both.

 

"No," Fraser said as he held the front seat up for the wolf to exit the car, "I'm afraid you won't be allowed in with us."

 

Another querulous canine sound, then Miss Fraser was explaining in a patient tone, "Yes, I know it is discriminatory, but we've discussed the health code regulations before.  If you would be so kind as to wait outside, we'll be certain to bring you out something later."  A more annoyed sounding growl, then Fraser continued with, "Now, don't take on like that."

 

With a flounce of his fluffy white tail, Diefenbaker turned his back on the Mountie and stalked over to a nearby fence that had a perfect view of Lake Michigan.  The white wolf sat there like a statue, his back stolidly to them as he watched the windswept lake.

 

"All right, be that way," Fraser said to his retreating wolf, sounding exasperated, in spite of the soft female tone.

 

"Hey, man, was she really talking to the dog?"  The goggle-eyed Hispanic kid at the valet kiosk asked as he came up to take the car keys.  The night was so cold that the kid had a leather jacket over his red valet uniform.

 

"More like arguing," Ray corrected.  "But, yeah, basically that's what h-she was doing."

 

Always a stickler for details, Fraser corrected, "Diefenbaker is not a dog.  He's a wolf.  Well, a half-wolf really.  I don't know what the other part is, but-"

 

"Benny," the cop interrupted.

 

"Yes, Ray?"  Fraser turned those innocent eyes on him. The wind was whipping the longish strands of the wig across Benny's face.  The Mountie's normally peaches and cream complexioned cheeks were taking on a reddish flush from the cold.

 

"He isn't going to live long enough to hear that story," Ray said, before turning to the valet.  "Be careful with the car, kid.  You manage to park it and bring it back to me with all its pieces intact and no new scratches, there's a twenty in it for you."

 

"Thanks, man, you're a prince," the valet grinned.

 

"Actually, I'm a cop, so the car better be here.  Comprendo?"

 

"You got it, man.  Have a good night." With that, the dark-haired youth climbed behind the steering wheel and squealed into the parking lot.

 

His heart in his throat, Ray firmly turned his back on his baby.  "If that kid scratches her, I swear I'll..."

 

"Ray?"  Benny asked, his perplexed gaze following the Riviera.

 

"Yes?"

 

"Why did that young man think you were royalty?"

 

"Huh?" Ray focused on his partner.

 

"He called you a prince," Fraser explained.

 

Venting a long sigh, Ray took hold of his partner's elbow as any proper gentleman would with a lady.  "It's a metaphor, Benny. Don't they have metaphors in Canada?"

 

"Well, strictly speaking, it wasn't a metaphor, Ray.  A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them, such as `it's raining money'.  I believe the young man was actually employing..."

 

"Benny, did you swallow a dictionary?" he cut into the endless prattle.

 

"No, Ray, that would be physiologically impossible."

 

"Look, we're here to have a good time.  Could you leave the grammar lessons behind?" Ray requested with barely leashed patience.  They weren't even in the building yet and already the night was seeming endless.

 

"Ray, the proper use of language is an essential skill. Without it..."

 

His teeth set in frustration, ready to cut in again and start screaming in another second, Ray was shocked to hear the stream of pointless lecturing falter.  He looked over to Fraser at the sudden stop, just to make sure the Canadian hadn't had a coronary or been shot - those being the only possible reasons Ray could imagine for Fraser to stop speaking mid-sentence like that. 

 

But Benny was intact.  The Mountie's lipstick reddened mouth had dropped open as Fraser stared up at the lakeside front of the club.

 

"Oh, my..." Fraser murmured.

 

Mirage's was something to see.  Millions of tiny Christmas lights twinkled around the enormous glass windows on this side of the building.  The large deck out back with its round, presently unoccupied tables, was similarly decorated.  It was a breath-taking sight, even if you'd seen it before.  But if you weren't expecting it, the shimmering rainbow of light was rather like turning an inner-city corner and finding the Grand Canyon gaping before you.

 

"Ray, this is incredible," Benny whispered at last, his marveling gaze turning out to contemplate the slick black lake waters a few hundred feet away. 

 

There were a couple of ships way out in the surf, but nothing close enough to disturb the reflection of Mirage's lights on the water.

 

It was quite possibly the most romantic place Vecchio had ever seen, even in the dead of winter.  On reflection, Ray decided it was even more romantic this time of year. Come summer, the deck would be swarmed with people laughing, loud music, and drinking.  But right now, with the November gales wailing down on them, it was as deserted as Benny's beloved Northwest Territory.

 

"It's like being adrift in a million candles or stars," his companion murmured.

 

"Yeah, it's real beautiful; isn't it?" Ray glanced in Fraser's direction, and was unable to look away. 

 

Benny already had a very attractive face, but with all that makeup and the soft expression the constable was currently sporting, the round, clean-cut features were downright pretty.

 

Fraser was still staring out over the twinkling lights of the decorated deck, gazing out at the dark waters beyond.  It was far too dark out here to see the color of Benny's eyes.  They looked black as the spaces between the stars, or maybe the inky waters of Lake Michigan.  And all those sparking lights were reflected in them.  Hell, the blinking lights were even glinting off Fraser's glossy lipstick, which Ray found himself staring at for some unfathomable reason.

 

He kept looking at his partner like he'd never seen the man before.  Part of Ray even felt that way, like Benny was some incredible work of art that he'd never noticed until this moment.

 

"Are you all right, Ray?" Benny inquired after a long silence.

 

"Huh?  Oh, yeah."  Vecchio shook himself back to something like reality and tore his eyes off Fraser's profile. 

 

Despite his assurance, he felt a little off inside. Something in the pit of his stomach was starting to hurt.  It wasn't a new pain.  He'd had this ache for a while now, since around the time Victoria had shown up. 

 

Not for the first time, Ray wondered if maybe he was getting an ulcer.  Or maybe he was allergic to Fraser, he thought with a secret smile.  The ache always seemed worse in Benny's company.

 

"Should we go inside?" Benny asked.  "You look cold."

 

Understatement of the year.  Vecchio was frozen straight through.  "Yeah, it is a little chilly out here."

 

Shivering, he unconsciously sidled closer to the taller man as he once again took Fraser's arm and led him to the entrance.

 

After all that silence, the music from the dance floor hit them like an icy wave as they stepped in the door.  The 50s rock presently playing on the speakers wasn't quite as loud as the disco music at St. Fortunada's, but it was more than a little jarring to his freezing ears.

 

Benny just stopped inside the door and stared like most first time visitors to Mirage did.  The back and side walls of the club were covered with mirrors, the front a wall of windows overlooking the lake.  Like the deck outside, the ceilings and walls were strewn with thousands of brightly twinkling Christmas lights.  The floor was black and highly polished, reflecting back all those sparking colored bulbs up above. 

 

The overall effect of the place was very dramatic.  If you came in through the deck entrance at night as they had, the room gave the illusion of having walked straight out onto the surface of the lake.

 

There were tables clustered around the mirrored walls of the club, but it's center was a big empty pool of flickering lights and dancers.  Interspersed throughout the club's sides were huge tanks filled with exotic tropical fish.  Their slow, bright motions as they swam only added to the impression of being in the lake.

 

"You like?" Ray asked, grinning over at his speechless companion.

 

"I feel like we just walked out onto the lake," Fraser said, moving closer to him.  "It is almost...sensory overload."

 

"Yeah, it's pretty wild.  You should see it when the joint is full.  The Wednesday night crowd just doesn't do the place justice," Ray commented, looking out over the near-empty dance floor.  "The last time I was here there was a three hour wait just to get in the door.  Here, give me your coat and I’ll go check them.”

 

Ray had just returned from the coat check and was about to speak to the maitre de when someone called his name.  Not the one he used at the station, but his given name, the one his family and the adults from the old neighborhood called him.

 

"Raimondo Vecchio!"

 

Ray turned to see Mirage's proprietor, a heavy set swarthy man in his late sixties approaching.

 

"Mario!  How're you doing, man?" Ray questioned as he was absorbed into a huge bear hug.

 

"Well, my boy, well.  And yourself?"

 

"I'm good, Mario."

 

"And how is your lovely mother?  It's been so long since I saw her."

 

"She's fine.  So's the rest of the family."

 

"Wonderful," Mario's dark eyes turned towards Fraser. "Aren't you going to introduce me to your young lady, Raimondo?"

 

Abruptly uncomfortable, Ray nodded.  "Sure.  Mario Pastore, this is Miss Fraser."

 

"It's a definite pleasure to meet you, Miss Fraser," Mario grinned.  Always a ladies' man, Pastore couldn't seem to resist taking a visual tour of Fraser's impressive bust line.

 

Ray saw Fraser blush bright red under that lascivious perusal.  Wanting to avert disaster, Ray quickly interceded with, "Mario, this place is great."

 

Dragging his eyes away from Fraser's breasts with visible reluctance, Mario seemed to glow with pride as he replied, "Yeah, she's doing good, isn't she?  Let me get you set up at a table.  We can talk once you've eaten."  The proprietor turned to the tall, dark haired maitre de waiting at the reception kiosk.  "Antonio, these are my special friends.  Make sure they want for nothing.  Enjoy your dinner, Ray."

 

"Ah, thanks, Mario."

 

"If you'll come this way, sir, madam?"  The maitre de deferentially inquired.

 

The handsome, tuxedoed man led them to a table that was secluded from the others by an enormous fish tank and a stand of potted palms.

 

After pulling out the chair for Miss Fraser, Antonio gave them a pair of plastic menus.  "Mandy will be your server tonight.  She will be over to take your orders in a moment.  Enjoy your meal."

 

"Thanks," Ray murmured.  Sort of curious as to why his own voice was the only one offering that courtesy when he was out with Miss Manners, Ray glanced over at his partner.

 

Fraser's face was about as frozen with fury as Ray had ever seen it.

 

"What's wrong, Benny?" he whispered once they were alone, although he had a pretty good idea as to what was bothering his friend.

 

Ray wasn't disappointed.

 

His soft voice carefully controlled, Fraser whispered back, "Did you see the way Mr. Pastore was staring at my bosom!  I've never been so humiliated in all my life!"

 

Thinking that Benny was exaggerating, if only a little, Ray tried to cool things down.  "Benny, Mario didn't mean anything by it.  He just likes beautiful women, especially well built beautiful women.  You may find this hard to believe, but some girls actually enjoy when a man checks out their figure."

 

"Well, I'm not that kind of a girl, Ray," Fraser huffily informed.

 

"I know you're not," Ray assured.  It being all he could do not to laugh, which he knew would only infuriate his partner further, Ray practically jumped for joy when a well-rounded blonde in a short waitress' skirt interrupted their conversation.

 

"Hi, welcome to Mirage's.  My name is Mandy.  I'll be your server tonight."

 

"Hello, Mandy," Ray greeted, smiling up into her freckled features.

 

"Can I get you something to drink?  Perhaps an appetizer?"

 

Knowing his partner's preferences, Ray grinned up at the girl.  "Yeah, bring us a pitcher of coke and a calmari appetizer.  You want the fresh mozzarella, too, Benny?"

 

"That would be nice, Ray," Fraser answered.

 

"Excuse me, but did he call you Benny?  That's an unusual name for a woman," Mandy politely remarked.

 

Seeing Fraser's trapped, about-to-give-the-whole-game away-by-blurting-out-the-truth expression, Ray quickly extemporized with, "Yeah, I called hi-her Benny.  It's Benjamina.  After her grandmother."

 

"Oh, it's lovely.  My real name's Moira Amanda, after my grandmother, too, but Moira doesn't sound half as pretty as ‘Benny’," the waitress commented.

 

"Oh, I don't know," Fraser replied. "Moira is quite a beautiful name in itself.  It isn't heard very much anymore.  I think Moira has an enchanting sound to it that brings back a more elegant age."

 

"Thank you.  That's kind of you to say, miss," the waitress answered.

 

"No, it's only the truth.  Moira is a regal name.  You should wear it with pride," Benny said.

 

Stunned, Ray watched his partner work his usual magic on the spell-bound girl before them.  Even though Fraser was dressed like a woman, the waitress blushed as happily at the compliment as Frannie or Elaine would have done.

 

As the girl finally left to get their drinks, Ray leaned across the table to whisper in his partner's ear, "And here I thought it was the uniform."

 

"What was the uniform?"

 

"This...fascination women have with you.  I thought they were just suckers for the red coat, but I guess it's more than that," Ray was forced to admit.

 

"I don't know what you're talking about, Ray," Benny protested with absolute sincerity.

 

"I know.  That's part of your charm, Benny."

 

"I still don't understand."

 

There was no way that he could explain it.  Ray shook his head, flooded with that familiar sense of fond exasperation.  There were times he really wanted to shake his friend.  Fraser had to be the only man on the planet who was totally oblivious to his own sex appeal.  He'd seen Benny get away with things that would have landed any other guy behind bars, and not just a slap in the face.  But his Mountie simply toddled on, utterly unaware of the conquests he made just by being himself.  It wasn't fair.

 

Their drinks arrived and Mandy opened her pad to take their dinner orders.

 

"So, what can I get for you?" The blonde asked, "Miss?"

 

Fraser looked up from the menu.  "I'll try the chicken Florentine and mixed vegetables, please."

 

"And you, sir?" Mandy turned to Vecchio.

 

"Give me the veal parmesan and spaghetti."

 

"Sure thing," Mandy replied, her warm smile more than mildly inviting.

 

Another night, in other company, the voltage of that smile would have had Ray turning on the charm, but tonight he left off the usual flirtations.  He'd already annoyed Benny enough without insulting him by flirting with another woman while acting as Miss Fraser's escort.  Ray's manners mightn't be up to Canadian standards, but he had that much common sense.

 

Abruptly recalling Fraser's promise to Dief, Ray added, "Oh, and could you get us a takeout order of a rare porterhouse steak and two baked potatoes - no butter or sour cream on the spuds.  Okay, honey?"

 

"Of course, sir.  I'll have it ready for you when you're leaving," Mandy agreed.

 

"That's great," Ray grinned, unable to completely stop himself from appreciating the view as she walked away.

 

 "Ray, Ray, RAY!"  Miss Fraser's voice recalled him to the present.

 

Contrite, Ray returned his attention to his partner, "Sorry."

 

Benny looked as though he were considering another sulk, but then seemed to dispense with the idea.  Instead, he asked, "A steak?"

 

"For Dief," he shrugged.

 

"You are spoiling that wolf.  He is becoming completely unlivable," Benny reported, with feigned disapproval.  Beneath his outer hard facade, Ray sensed that his friend was touched by the gesture.

 

"You told him that we'd bring him something.  A promise is important, remember?" Ray gave his most winning grin, and watched with fascination as Fraser's disapproving exterior melted away.

 

The smile that simple statement earned him was blinding in intensity.  "Yes, I do."

 

"Anyway, he deserves a treat once in a while.  You both do."

 

Those peaches and cream cheeks were priceless, Ray decided.  He was seriously thinking about making this a weekly event just for the pleasure of seeing Benny blush so frequently.  It was amusing enough in the daily course of events when some woman's attentions made Fraser turn redder than his uniform, but causing that blush himself was great fun.

 

"Ray..." Benny cautioned.

 

Opening his eyes very wide, he asked at his most earnest, "Yes, Benny?"

 

In the uncertain candlelight, Benny's eyes were the exact color of star sapphires.  The cop felt his own smile slip slowly away as he found himself drawn into their surprised depths. 

 

An odd tension seemed to form between them as they gazed at each other in silence.  He'd never really allowed himself to admire how truly stunning Fraser's eyes were.

 

He watched Benny's flush deepen.  Appearing unusually flustered, the other man dropped his silver-blue gaze to his soda glass.  "Nothing.  Ah, here comes dinner, I believe."

 

With an odd sense of anti-climax, Ray followed Fraser's stare to the approaching busboy.  He didn't know what the weird tension between them was, but it wasn't all bad.  Beneath his outer nervousness, he found himself strangely excited.

 

He had a feeling Benny was more aware of what was going on.  His partner's incomprehensible mood swings and Fraser's pointed change of topic hinted that the astute constable was attempting to politely evade something.

 

But as the strange tension between them dissipated under the normal routine of handing out plates and sampling each other's meals, Ray didn't press the issue.  Benny seemed to be enjoying himself again.  That was all that was important.

 

The next hour or so passed in a whirl of sumptuous dishes, a contagious amount of laughter, and surprisingly good conversation.  It was a really beautiful place.  Between the view of the ship lights way out on the night-black lake and the neon bright fish swimming patiently around the hundred gallon tank beside them, one was never truly bored.

 

Fraser's treasure trove of information was incredible.  While they ate their dinner, Benny identified each of the fish in the nearby tank and told Ray where they had probably originated.  Then he asked Ray about Mirage's history and skillfully prodded him into discussing some of the happier memories of his childhood.  When he wasn’t lecturing on arcane Innuit practices, Benny was an excellent listener.  And damn funny.  Fraser had a dry sense of humor that took a while to get.  Without much effort, Benny had him almost limp with laughter by the end of the meal. 

 

Ray was nearly as successful at entertaining his companion.  He had noticed a long time ago that he was the only one with whom Benny ever relaxed enough to really laugh.

 

As Mandy was clearing away the dessert plates, Ray patted his full stomach. 

 

"God, that was good.  I'm stuffed. You're going to have to roll me to the door."

 

"It was wonderful.  Thank you, Ray," Benny said in his sweet teacher's voice.  "I had a really good time."

 

Ray looked over at his companion's candlelit features.  He knew that tone.  Fraser was ready to call it a night.  His early to bed, early to rise partner was predictable as the tide.  That peculiar pain stirring inside him, Ray knew he didn't want to go home yet. 

 

"The night's still young, Miss Fraser."  On the spur of the moment, he asked, "Would you care to dance?"

 

"What?" Benny blinked in surprise.

 

"Dance - you know, trip the light fantastic.  There're other people out there." Ray gestured at the sparsely populated dance floor where eight or ten other couples could be seen doing a half-hearted twist.

 

"But..."

 

"Come on, I know you know how.  In fact, you were great before," Ray urged.

 

"But why would you want to dance with me now?" Fraser questioned, visibly adrift again.

 

"I want to dance with you because you're a good dancer and we had a lot of fun before," Ray patiently explained.

 

"But before we were dancing to keep an eye on Melissa..."

 

"And we were having so much fun doing it that we let her slip right out the door," Ray admitted, earning another bright red blush that he hadn't even been working on.  "Come on, Benny.  I'd ask Brenda Lewissy to dance with me if she were here."

 

"But..."

 

"Please?" he pressed, putting on his best puppy-dog pleading expression.

 

Once again that strained, tense feeling seemed to rise between them.  Benny gave an audible gulp before nodding, "All right, Ray."

 

From the tentative quality of the reply and Fraser's blatantly uncertain expression, Ray received the impression that his friend was agreeing against his better judgment.  Abruptly realizing that Fraser might be getting a little tired of wearing that dress, and might be wanting to get back to being a guy, Ray offered, "If you really don't want to do this, we can go home, Benny.  I understand."

 

Fraser seemed to search his face for a long moment, his chalk white teeth worrying his lip-stick covered, full, lower lip.  "No, you're right.  It was fun before."

 

"You're sure?"

 

"Yes, Ray," Benny assured, giving him that sweet, boyish smile that drove women crazy.  That smile had won its way into one street-weary detective's heart the first time the grief-stricken Mountie had turned it on him.

 

"Great."  Not needing to be reminded of his manners, he rose from his chair to help his companion up.  Taking Benny's elbow, he led his friend out onto the near-empty dance floor.

 

Chubbie Checker was still crooning, "Come on, baby, let's do the twist..."

 

With a gamin smile, Ray turned to his partner and started to sway his hips and shoulders in time to the driving rhythm.  Though he rarely admitted to it or had the opportunity, he loved to dance.  And Benny was a damn fine partner.

 

Fraser was a little stiff at first, and visibly self-conscious, but no more so than any woman might be who was three inches taller than her escort.

 

Ray could feel the stares they were earning.  With his exceptional height, wide shoulders and big bust line, Benny was very eye-catching.  The contrast between his light blue dress and swirling red hair did little to lessen the effect.

 

"People are staring at us, Ray," Benny whispered after a minute or two.

 

"That's because we're such good dancers, Miss Fraser." Vecchio grinned as he took hold of Benny's nearby hand and spun him around in time to the music.  "Ignore them.  They're just jealous."

 

"Jealous?"  Fraser questioned when their movements brought them close enough to each other to be heard over the music.

 

"I've got the prettiest date on the floor!" Ray joked.

 

For a moment, Benny looked like he was going to take offense, but then he broke into laughter, which at the very last instant he remembered to feminize.

 

Then the music changed to the Beatles version of ROCK&ROLL MUSIC and they both seemed to forget their audience.

 

Ray hadn't lied when he'd told Fraser that he was a good dancer.  In fact, Benny might very well be the best partner Ray had ever had on the dance floor.

 

Fraser's skirt covered hips swayed in time to the rhythm, his feet never missing a step or beat as the two men moved together in nearly choreographed perfection.  They didn't stumble into each other or step on each other's toes once.  Benny almost seemed to have a psychic awareness of where Ray was at any given moment, even when their gyrations left them facing away from each other.

 

When Benny decided to cut loose, he was really something to see, Ray thought, loving it as he watched his friend tear up the dance floor with his energy.  Although Fraser worked damn hard to hide it, he had a passionate nature, that he kept tightly locked away deep inside him.  Ray had seen it peek through on occasion, but mostly it stayed hidden behind that choking guise of formality.

 

Ray had the feeling that that dress and wig were giving his partner the opportunity to enjoy things that the Mountie habitually refused himself.  Benny might go out to eat at that greasy spoon of a diner across from his house or occasionally accompany the detective someplace, but on the whole, Fraser didn't do much in the way of entertainment.  Unless Benny was out helping people, Ray was fairly certain that when his partner wasn't with him, he pretty much just stayed home reading his dead father's journals.

 

The guy needed to get out and have fun more often, but no amount of cajoling on his part could have persuaded the Mountie to join him in an outing like this under normal circumstances.  Benny was really the first friend Ray had ever had with whom he didn't double date.

 

Peculiar as the truth was, Ray had to admit that this was much better than a double date.  If there had been any women along, they both would have had to pay attention to their dates, and they could never have danced together like this.  No, this was way better, he decided.  In fact, if forced to admit it, Ray would have to say that he was quite frankly having the time of his life.

 

ROCK&ROLL MUSIC ended, the beat of a different era taking its place.  Ray chuckled as he recognized the opening strains of the disco number. 

 

"They're paying our song, Benny."

 

"What?" Fraser questioned, his cheeks flushed from their exertions.

 

"It's the first song we ever danced to," Ray explained. "Blondie's HEART OF GLASS."

 

Tickled to death, Ray watched Fraser's face light up in a matching grin.

 

With a theatric wave of his arms, Ray launched into their previous disco routine.  This time, they danced through without interruption, mirroring each other's moves to perfection. 

 

Suddenly, Ray was seventeen again, showing off his smooth moves for the dream date he'd never had back then.  He didn't have to tell Benny what he was going to do. Fraser seemed to read his thoughts, flowing in perfect synchronicity with him as soon as Ray began to move.

 

"God, I feel like a kid again," Ray laughed when they were doing that crouching bit facing each other with their fingers pointing up at the ceiling.

 

"Indeed.  This brings back many fond memories of my grandmother," Benny concurred.

 

"Your grandmother taught you to disco dance?"  Ray gaped.

 

"She taught everyone in Totayuttuk.  She was a truly amazing woman."

 

"So are you, Miss Fraser." Ray grinned as they briefly bumped fronts coming up and then bopped off in opposite directions before eventually coming back together.

 

Their use of body language was incredible.  With no more than a glance into his eyes, Fraser seemed to anticipate his every move.

 

Ray was truly disappointed when the last notes of the song finally died away.

 

He and his partner both froze as a smattering of applause filled the dance floor. 

 

Shocked, Ray looked around to find all the other couples watching them.  They'd been so absorbed in each other that they hadn't even noticed that they'd taken up the entire dance floor.  Feeling his own cheeks warm as hot as Benny's looked, Ray put his arm around his partner's waist and guided them into a bow.

 

Seconds later, the unmistakable "Doot-doot, doot-doot, doot-doot, da-doot-doot-doot" of the HUSTLE played over the speakers, and he and Benny were once again strutting their stuff.

 

They were both dripping sweat down their faces, but still grinning from ear to ear, when the HUSTLE ended.

 

Then the DJ changed the CD again.  This time a slower number came up.  Chris DeBurgh's sexy LADY IN RED aurally slinked through the room, changing the entire mood of the place in a few sensual notes.

 

Benny and he froze simultaneously as the other couples on the floor embraced and began to slow dance.

 

"Ray?"

 

Ray looked into his partner's eyes at the quiet, uncertain inquiry.  The fact that Benny hadn't immediately walked away from Ray to return to their table was oddly significant in itself.  If his partner had turned tail and run, Ray would have let the entire subject drop right there, but he viewed the fact that Fraser stayed planted beside him as a silent indication that Benny wasn't ready to quit dancing yet.  Ray wasn't either, but...he wasn't sure if he was ready to slow dance with his male partner.

 

Up until now, everything they'd done could have been for kicks, a shared joke on the rest of the world.  But slow dancing...that wasn't funny.  That was serious.  Ray had fallen in love with Irene Zucco during just such a dance all those years ago in school.

 

Part of him wanted to say that this was going a bit too far, but Benny's vulnerable expression ripped right through him.

 

As if he'd read every one of Ray's doubts, Fraser softly said, "You're right.  This isn't a good idea."

 

The disappointment only flashed through those incredible eyes for a moment, but that was sixteen seconds too long for Ray to stand.  The purpose of this outing had been to give Benny a great night out on the town, to thank Fraser for the extremes he’d gone to in the name of friendship.  Making him feel bad wasn't in the game plan.

 

"No, let's not stop.  Come on.  It'll be fun." Not allowing himself time to reconsider, he opened his arms to Fraser.

 

Benny stood there, a deer-in-the-headlights expression on his face, before he gave a tentative smile and reached out for Ray's hand.

 

The perfume was rising in a steady stream from Benny's overheated flesh.  Ray breathed it in deep as the long, strong fingers of Fraser's left hand entwined with those of Ray’s right.  Feeling very self-conscious, Ray slipped his left arm around Benny's waist and stepped in closer.

 

There was no getting around how strange it felt.  The fake breasts bumped up hard against his chest, their artificial padding feeling almost like tiny pillows poking through the cop's suit.

 

As they started to sway and step slowly together, Ray was never so aware of his lack of height.  He'd never held anyone this tall so close.  Because of Fraser's two-inch heels, Ray's chin barely came to the Mountie's shoulder. He felt very small in Fraser's arms, embarrassingly so.

 

"You're not comfortable doing this, Ray," Fraser whispered near his ear, causing him to shiver at the warm brush of breath on his over-sensitive neck.

 

"Nah, I'm fine," he lied.

 

"Ray..."

 

He had to look up to meet Benny's eyes, which didn't help his self-consciousness any.  But once their gazes touched, Ray found his worries about the difference in their heights fading.  Benny looked so concerned about him.  Of all the people on this Earth that Ray had been associated with, excluding his mom, Fraser was the one who looked out for him most.  Ray had never had a friend - or lover, for that matter - who cared about him this much, this consistently.

 

And suddenly, the difference in their heights didn't seem all that important.  What did it matter if Fraser or Miss Fraser was four inches taller than him at the moment?  They'd had a great time up until now, and even this, though strange, wasn't bad. 

 

At least Benny wasn't trying to lead like nine tenths of his dates did.

 

Very aware of how those perceptive blue eyes were studying every nuance of his reaction, Ray put the full force of his personality into his grin, "Miss Fraser, you dance divinely."

 

"Ray, you don't have to..."

 

"I want to," he assured.  "I swear.  Come on, Benny. Just relax and go with the music."  Ray glanced up at his friend's tense profile and gave his partner the same advice he'd given Irene Zucco all those years ago, "Just close your eyes and rest your head on my shoulder.  Go on..."

 

After a few seconds, those long, artificially darkened lashes swept down. 

 

Ray removed his hand from Fraser's waist.  Stroking up the broad, powerful back to Benny's neck, he tangled his fingers in the soft locks of his partner's wig and gently urged Fraser's head towards his shoulder.  The hair was undoubtedly artificial, but it was still soft and pleasant to the touch.

 

"That's it," Ray approved as Fraser's rouge-tinted cheek hesitantly came to rest on his left shoulder.

 

An almost electric charge shot through him as Fraser's right cheek settled against his own.  His partner's skin was so closely shaven that there wasn't even a whisper of stubble there.  It didn't feel bad at all.  And the steady stream of that warm, moist breath wafting over his neck convulsed him in delicious shivers.

 

Ray's hands unconsciously tightened on his friend as that unique sensation swept through him.  Benny felt and smelt so good in his arms that it didn't even really feel strange to be holding him this way anymore.

 

But it was plain that his reserved partner was still unnerved by the closeness.  The muscles of Benny's entire body felt like they were tensed for disaster, like Fraser expected Ray to explode with anger at any second.  As he rubbed his palm over the silky blue material of the back of Benny's dress, he could almost sense those powerful muscles primed to bolt.

 

Knowing no way to verbally address the issue, Ray just stroked his friend's back in wide, reassuring circles, the way he would with one of his sister Maria's kids when they were upset.  As his hand moved in those slow, lazy rotations, Ray felt as though he were taming a wild forest creature – which in a way was precisely what he was doing.

 

"How you doing, Benny?" he softly questioned after a few moments.

 

"I'm well, Ray.  Are you sure you're not..."

 

"Quit worrying.  I'm having a ball."  Sensing that his voice was helping Benny relax under the strange circumstances, Ray guided their swaying steps and lowly whispered, "You know, it's weird."

 

"We can stop if you want, Ray..." Benny instantly offered, freezing up again.

 

"No, not this.  This is kinda nice," he quickly admitted.

 

"Then what is weird, if not what we're doing now?"

 

"I've known you what?  Two years now?"

 

"Twenty-two months, twenty days, five hours and sixteen minutes, I believe," Fraser automatically supplied.

 

"Sixteen minutes, hah?" Ray chuckled as he stared out at the fairly crowded dance floor over Benny's bent head. 

 

The longer he held Benny close like this, the more he felt himself relaxing.  They looked just like any other couple whispering sweet-nothings in each other's ears, he realized, seeing how their reflections blended in with all the others in the nearby mirror. 

 

They didn't stand out like freaks or anything.  Benny was a little taller than him, but not unnaturally so.  Ray defied anybody on the planet to tell that Fraser wasn't a woman by just looking at them.  God knew, the Mountie had a pretty enough face to dazzle anyone.

 

"I could check my watch for a more precise calculation, but the angle of the moon above the lake outside indicates-"

 

"No, I'll take your word for it, Benny," he interrupted with a chuckle.  That was his Fraser, telling time by the angle of the moon.

 

"So, what was weird, Ray?" Benny whispered after another short time of slow swaying.

 

"Well, we've known each other a long time.  Right?"

 

"Yes," Benny agreed.

 

"And you're my best friend, right?" Ray checked.

 

"I would hope to hold that honor.  I consider you mine," Fraser solemnly informed, proper and precise as ever.

 

The hand Ray had resting on his partner's back unconsciously pressed Benny closer.  "It's mutual, buddy."

 

"So..?" Benny prompted.

 

"Hmmm?"  Startled, Ray realized that he was really getting into the dancing.  He'd always loved this particular song.  And Benny moved like a breeze beside him, so light on his feet and so warm that Ray almost felt like he was embracing a living dream. 

 

The affection they held for each other seemed to envelop them both in a warm, safe bubble as their bodies moved in unison.  Ray had never felt anything like it.  Holding Benny like this had an almost tranquilizing effect on him.  All he really wanted to do was curl up with the warm body he was embracing and float on these good feelings.

 

As comforting as the sensation was, it was equally distracting.  Holding Benny this close felt so damn good, too good.  Those strong arms were tight around him.  The blazing heat pressed down his front seemed to inherently promise that any danger would have to go through Fraser before it would get to him.  In his whole life, Ray had rarely felt this at peace, this protected.

 

Totally shocked, Ray recognized that he'd finally found the safe harbor for which he'd searched his entire adult life, that place where all the daily strife couldn't touch him.  Holding Benny was like coming home for his soul.

 

But his strict Roman Catholic upbringing kept insisting that only a pervert would enjoy holding another man this way, even if the guy did look better in drag than most of the real women he'd dated.

 

Ray had never tackled a conundrum like this.  All his life, right and wrong had been very clear.  Yet, the longer he stayed here in Benny's arms, the foggier the delineations became.

 

Fraser called him back from his troubled ruminations when his friend softly reminded, "You started to say something before.  We've known each other a long time; I'm your best friend and..?"

 

Very conscious of how right it felt to have the weight of that warm head pillowed on his shoulder, Ray tried to explain, "Well, I come from a pretty touchy-feely family.  It's just weird that considering how long we've known each other and how close we are, that this is the first time I've ever hugged you."

 

For some reason, his words left Ray feeling very vulnerable and exposed, like maybe this wasn't something he should be saying to another guy.

 

But once again Benny proved that Ray could basically tell Fraser anything.  Benny didn't freak out at the peculiar admission the way another man might have. 

 

Ray wouldn't have really blamed Fraser if he had.  After all, his partner was standing here slow dancing with another man who'd all but insisted that Fraser dress up in drag to accompany him on this outing tonight.  If Ray had done this for someone - not that he could ever picture himself doing so - and they'd come out with a line like that, Ray would have rightly interpreted it as a come-on.  That Benny didn't was simply a testament to the trust he had in him, Ray realized.  Although, at this point, the street-wise cop was beginning to wonder if Benny would even recognize a come-on from another man, especially someone Fraser trusted.  In some ways, Benny was almost retarded when it came to adult sexual interaction.

 

Instead of verbally blowing up at him, Benny's muscles just tightened up again as he whispered, "I'm sorry, Ray," sounding almost bereft.

 

"Huh?  What for?"

 

"I'm not...good at these things.  I know how important touch is to your family.  Neither my grandparents nor my father were demonstrative by nature.  I can't recall any of them ever hugging me.  Perhaps my mother did when I was younger, but...I don't really remember.  I don't know how..."

 

"Hey, I wasn't complainin'.  Just remarking upon it," Ray choked up as he realized that his partner was nearly apologizing for not getting affection as a kid. 

 

The admission just about broke his heart.  If there was anyone on this planet who truly deserved to be loved, it was the man Ray held in his arms. 

 

Only as an afterthought did Ray realize how strange it was for Benny to make that type of admission at all.  But maybe Fraser was finding it easier to talk to him without looking directly at him, Ray thought.  This was the first time he could remember Benny telling him anything about his past that wasn't cloaked in Innuit trivia and excess verbiage.

 

When he could trust his voice again, Ray questioned, "A while ago you told me that your dad used to go away for months on end.  You mean he left without..."

 

Worrying that he might be rubbing salt in an open wound, Ray abruptly shut his mouth.  For all that his friend nattered on incessantly about unimportant trivia, Benny so rarely told him anything useful about his past that he didn't want to jinx it or miss anything.

 

"He used to shake my hand before he left.  From his journals, I know that he was very proud of me for being so brave, but..."

 

For once, words seemed to fail Fraser.

 

"But a little kid would prefer a hug, right?"  Ray guessed, squeezing Benny tighter in his arms. 

 

Something deep inside him wanted to protect his innocent friend and make up for all the times Fraser had been hurt.  Christ, his own dad had been a real loser, but even he'd hugged Ray before going on the few vacations his parents had taken without their kids.  Ray couldn't imagine leaving his only son for months on end without at least a hug.

 

"I suppose.  I tell you this, not as an excuse, but as an explanation.  I...I know I'm not like your other friends. That I don't have the...inter-personal skills..."

 

It took Ray nearly a minute to talk around the lump that lodged in his throat again.  He'd been right before.  Benny really was apologizing because his folks had never given him open affection. 

 

"Your inter-personal skills are just fine, Benny.  You're not like my other friends; you're better than them.  You're the best friend I've ever had."

 

"I am?" Fraser sounded stunned.

 

Ray drew back to meet those eyes that were now looking up at him.  "You're the only friend I've ever had that mattered, Benny."

 

Fraser didn't respond for what seemed a very long time. When he finally broke the silence, his voice was husky with subdued emotion.  "Thank you, Ray.  That means a lot to me.  You know that I feel the same."

 

Blatantly enjoying the glide of the broad back under his stroking palm, Ray replied, "Yeah, I know that you do, even though I don't really understand it."

 

"What?"

 

Taking his time to phrase this correctly, Ray reluctantly confessed, "There are a thousand better cops than me that you could've teamed up with..."

 

"No, Ray, there aren't.  You-"

 

"I was a screw-up before you came along, Benny."

 

Ray could have predicted to the exact second how long it would take his quixotic companion to hotly protest in his defense, "No, Ray, you were-"

 

"I was a disillusioned loser.  Being a cop had lost it's meaning until you came along in your bright red Mountie suit like some displaced superhero and reminded me of everything I 'd forgotten.  You made this badge mean something again."

 

"I don't believe that," Fraser softly insisted.

 

"It's true.  Ask anyone down at the squad room."

 

"I don't have to ask anyone.  No matter what you say, you have always been an honorable man, Ray."

 

"How do you know that?"  Ray finally voiced the question that he'd been dying to ask since he and Fraser first met. 

 

In some strange way, talking over Benny's head in this island of isolation in the middle of the dance floor made this heart to heart easier.  He knew that he never would have been able to ask Benny this question face to face.  Staring over Fraser's shoulder, dancing close like this to the slinky music, confidences came easily.

 

When Fraser replied, he sounded almost amused, like he was explaining something painfully obvious to a backwards child, "Because you're my best friend, Ray."

 

"But...why me?  I wasn't your best friend when you showed up here.  In fact, I wasn't even particularly nice to you..."

 

"You are really serious about this?" Benny asked when Ray couldn't find a way of continuing the discussion without sounding like an insecure idiot.

 

"Yeah, it's one of those mysteries of the universe that keeps me awake at night."

 

But once again, his perceptive partner seemed to read straight to his soul.  "I know that you are an honorable man because you jeopardized your life to protect me when that bomb went off in Francis Drake's apartment the day after we met.  You were safe by the door when I tripped that wire.  You could have escaped unscathed, but you are a hero at heart and followed your nature."

 

"I wasn't any hero, Benny.  I just knew that you were gonna get killed if I didn't warn you," Ray denied.

 

"And the type of disillusioned man you described would not have cared.  He would have thought of his own safety first and fled.  Instead, you risked everything to save a virtual stranger.  Then you dragged yourself from your sick bed, flew to the Yukon at your own expense, and dared the ravages of the arctic, simply to ease my mind by telling me you'd solved the case.  These are not the actions of a loser.  They are the earmarks of a true hero, the type of men my father and Buck Frobisher were."

 

"I'm not like your father or Buck Frobisher," Ray denied, made uneasy by the comparison.  Benny made his actions when they first met sound so heroic, but basically he had just done what he had to do.  He never would have been able to live with himself if he'd allowed Fraser to get blown up in that explosion, anymore than he would have had he not traveled to Canada with his discovery about Gerard's complicity in Fraser's father's murder.

 

"You're not Canadian, of course, but that is hardly your fault.  You are cut from the same mold, no matter what your modesty might insist."

 

Feeling his insides turn to mush, Ray shook his head, "Benny, you're delusional."

 

"Perhaps, but I'm also right."

 

Laughing so hard that he could barely stand up, Ray tightened his hold on Fraser and replied, "You usually are, partner, even if I'm too stubborn to admit it half the time.”

 

It wasn't until the instrumental horn number currently playing ended that Ray even realized that LADY IN RED was long past.  The sexy sounding clarinet solo was immediately replaced by Eric Clapton's WONDERFUL TONIGHT.  As they stood there with their fronts pressed tight together, waiting for the Clapton song to begin, there wasn't even any debate between them.  They just kept dancing, like two lovers so lost in each other they were hardly aware of the music.

 

That the appraisal was uncomfortably close to the truth was something Ray was slow in seeing.  Holding Benny like this felt way too good to jeopardize by too close an examination.  So, he simply went with the feeling, dancing in that lazy, sensual swaying that seemed second nature to them now, while he gave Benny all those hugs he'd missed out on as a kid.

 

Ray had stopped worrying about what his partner might be thinking about him.  Fraser seemed to be sucking up the physical expression of his affection like a dried out sponge.

 

They must have danced five or maybe even six slow numbers before the DJ put something fast back on.  Although the primitive drive of Nancy Wilson's guitar work on Heart's IF LOOKS COULD KILL was as irresistible as ceremonial drums, it took Ray a few moments to even realize that the music had changed.

 

Benny seemed equally abstracted, for, when Ray finally managed to pull out of the comfortable embrace, Fraser stood blinking at him as if aroused from a deep sleep, a far-away expression on his already soft features.

 

"You feel like dancing some more?" Ray checked, even though he felt too jarred by the sudden change in mood to continue himself.

 

"Not unless you want to," Fraser demurred, still looking a little dazed.

 

"Nah, it'd be hard to top that last one."

 

"Yes, I..." Seeming at a loss for words, Benny finished with, "...it was fun."

 

"Come on.  Let's go get Dief's doggie bag," Ray suggested.  “You want another drink?"

 

"No, thank you, I'm fine.  Only..."

 

"Yes?"  Ray asked at the distracted tone.

 

"How is my makeup?"

 

"What?" Ray smiled as they approached their table, where Benny's purse sat waiting on the spare chair.

 

"The mascara has an unfortunate tendency to run when I sweat.  And with all that dancing... Is it still in place?"

 

Realizing that Fraser was completely serious, Ray killed his smile and closely examined the Mountie's face. "You still look great, but your mascara is starting to do that raccoon thing that Frannie's does sometimes."

 

"So I feared.  If you'll excuse me, I'll fix it before we leave."

 

"Sure thing.  I'll get Dief's happy meal."  As he watched his partner rise to hurry towards the ladies' room, Ray shook his head.  Fraser never did anything by half- measures.

 

Motioning to Mandy for the check, Vecchio patiently waited for her to get their take-out order from the kitchen and add up the damages.  The fact that she was using a calculator was in no way reassuring. 

 

So much for keeping that credit card bill under control this month, he thought without a trace of regret as she brought the bill to him.

 

"Was everything to your liking, my friend?"  Mario's cheerful voice boomed behind him.

 

"Yeah, Mario.  It was great," Ray replied as the rotund proprietor stopped beside their table.  "You really have one hell of a club here."

 

"It's always good to see old friends here, Ray.  I miss the old neighborhood."

 

"The place isn't the same without you, Mario."

 

The club owner's dark eyes moved to Fraser's empty chair.  "Your young lady enjoyed herself?"

 

"Yeah, she had a ball," Ray answered, then grinned. "She's in the powder room putting on a new paint job."

 

"She is the one, no?"  Mario asked conspiratorially, his round face with its zillions of laugh lines suddenly going serious.

 

"Huh?"

 

"I was watching you two dance.  It did my heart good. It was like looking into the past, seeing my Lucy and me twenty years ago.  God bless her soul.  You two were just like we were when love was young.  There was no one else in the world for either of you.  I'm glad you've found her, Raimondo.  There's nothing like it when the real thing comes along."

 

Ray froze, caught between the impulse to roar his head off with laughter or run from the building in horror.  Mario thought Benny was his real thing?

 

In the end, he kept the laughter in, searching Mario's face for some sign of deceit, some hint that the older man had seen through Fraser's disguise and was putting him on. 

 

But, no, Mario's dark brown eyes were utterly serious.

 

And as much as Ray wanted to deny Mario's words, something inside Ray wouldn't allow him to make light of the observation.  There was a part of him that felt almost reverent about the way holding Benny made him feel.  There was no way in hell Ray was going to turn that experience into a joke. 

 

But by not refuting the claim, was he admitting to it? 

 

Ray felt his grin fade slowly from his face as the ramifications set in.

 

"I'm truly happy for you, Raimondo.  You're a good boy. You deserve a good woman."

 

His mouth had turned to sandpaper, but Ray forced his tongue to work, "Thanks, Mario.  Benny is something special."

 

"You two make a lovely couple.  You must promise me a dance with your beautiful bride at the wedding," Mario grinned.

 

Completely out of his depth, Ray tried to swallow and cover with the expected comeback.  "I promise, if ever Benny and me get married, you can have the first dance - after mine, of course."

 

"But of course," his old friend grinned and slapped him on the shoulder.

 

Ray was still standing there, as shocked as an accident victim, blankly staring at Mario, when the proprietor continued with, "You will allow me to offer you tonight's dinner as a pre-engagement present; won't you, Ray?"

 

"What?" he stammered, really feeling like he'd dropped down a rabbit hole into Oz.  And for once, Benny wasn't directly responsible for the feeling.

 

"Watching you and your lady made my heart feel young again, Raimondo.  I could feel my Lucy close to me as you two danced.  I want to thank you for that."

 

Totally uncomfortable now, Ray tried to refuse, "Mario, you don't have to..."

 

"I want to, Ray." The old-timer insisted, reaching up to squeeze his shoulder, his eyes bright with tears. "Don't make me feel bad by turning down my gift, okay?"

 

The one thing he'd learned early in life was that you didn't insult someone from the Old World by refusing their gestures of generosity, not unless the gift came with a price tag you couldn't pay.  But Mario had never been one to ask for a favor.  If he said something was a gift, it was just that.

 

"Thank you, Mario." Ray managed at last.  "I greatly appreciate it."

 

"My pleasure, Ray.  Ah, here comes your young lady now. Go home and make her yours, kid."

 

"Hello, Ray, Mr. Pastori," Fraser softly greeted.

 

“Please, call me Mario,” the proprietor insisted.

 

“Mario,” Fraser nodded, smiling politely.

 

"Hi, ya, Benny," Ray returned, still totally stunned by Mario's assumptions.  Because he felt like he needed some grounding in reality, Ray reached out to lay his hand on Fraser's back.  It was an unconscious gesture, something he did quite often without thinking. 

 

Usually, Benny simply stood there, neither responding to nor rejecting the touch.  But something had changed between them tonight.  Ray was surprised to feel Fraser sidle closer to him, stopping only when their sides were pressed together.

 

"Ah, Benny, Mario insisted on making us his guests tonight."

 

Fraser was always delighted by small kindness’. 

 

Ray didn't even realize he was staring at his partner until he saw Benny's grin light up his face. 

 

"Thank you, Mario.  That is very kind of you."

 

The club's proprietor seemed equally helpless against Fraser's charm as the rest of humanity, "No, it's my pleasure, dear lady.  Your Ray has promised me the first dance at your wedding, after his own, of course."

 

"What?" Fraser questioned on a rising note of panic.

 

"I, ah, we really appreciate it, Mario," Ray stammered, unable to even look at Fraser at that moment.  He was uncomfortably aware of his partner's tension as Benny stepped back from him.  "Ah, here comes Mandy now.  Thank you again, Mario.  I better get our coats.  Would you hold this, Benny?" he passed over the paper bag with Dief's steak.

 

"You be sure to bring your young lady back again soon, Ray.  You hear?" Mario pressed.

 

"I will," Ray would have agreed to anything at that point to get out of there.  Nevertheless, he was almost afraid to leave Benny standing alone with Mario as he went to royally tip their waitress and fetch their overcoats.

 

Fortunately, Mirage's owner was called away by the time Ray returned with his arms weighted down with their coats.

 

Placing the take-out order on a nearby empty table, Ray quickly assisted Fraser into his coat.  There was no mistaking how stiff and tense Benny's muscles were.  Fraser's face was so immobile it might have been carved from stone - or ice. 

 

His partner was major league pissed with him, Ray recognized, and with good cause.

 

The silence as they left the club and waited for the valet to return their car was absolute, like the quiet of the Yukon that time Ray had gone up to inform Fraser of his father's murderer.  There was nothing but the bitter cold and howling wind. 

 

After the warmth of Benny's arms, it was a harsh dose of reality.  But Ray was used to reality being harsh, so he did his best to adjust.

 

It hurt, though, losing all that warm closeness. 

 

The forbidding, frozen mask Benny was wearing all but guaranteed that they'd never reclaim that feeling.

 

While they stood there shivering in front of the valet kiosk, waiting for the kid to get the Riv, Dief came bounding over, all lolling tongue and breathy enthusiasm as he sniffed at the bag containing his steak.

 

"No," Fraser firmly stated, staring directly into the deaf wolf's eyes, "you cannot have it now.  When we get home."

 

The car arrived, cutting off any further inter-species arguing.

 

Vecchio knew it was bad when he was disappointed that Fraser wasn't able to continue the normally annoying habit of arguing with his wolf.

 

Ray tossed the kid the promised twenty, held the passenger door open long enough for wolf and Mountie to enter, then crossed to the driver's side.  He felt like he was facing the firing squad as he slid into the Riv's luxurious leather seat.  That fifteen minute trip over to West Racine was going to be the longest of his life.

 

The tension was fully as grating inside as Ray had expected it to be, thick enough to cut with a knife - which he wished he had at the moment to use on his own throat.  This was the biggest boner he'd pulled in his life.  It was fully possible that his stupidity was going to cost him his partnership and closest friend. 

 

Fraser still hadn't said word one to him about Mario's comment.  God only knew what the repressed, oft-times puritanical Mountie was thinking about all this.

 

"Ray?"

 

It took two swallows to get his mouth wet enough to answer.  His eyes firmly on the road, Ray waited to find out how much his lunacy had cost him.  "Yeah, Benny?"

 

"I'm terribly sorry."

 

The stricken apology was so not what he was expecting that Vecchio nearly drove them into a parked car. 

 

"What?  What do you have to be sorry for?"

 

"You must have been embarrassed when your friend..."

 

Ray glanced over in time to see Fraser catch his lower lip between his teeth and look away. 

 

"I wasn't embarrassed, Benny.  I was just worried that you'd be upset."

 

His attention back on the dark, empty streets again, Ray could almost feel Benny's gaze digging into his right cheek.

 

"You weren't?" Fraser questioned.

 

"No, Benny.  How `bout you?  Were you embarrassed or upset?" he asked.

 

There was a moment's quiet, then Fraser softly offered, "I-I'm not sure.  Mario's...assumption was quite..."

 

"Yeah, it sure was," Ray agreed when words seemed to fail his articulate friend.  "You're not mad at me, then?"

 

"Why would I be mad at you, Ray?"

 

The bewildered tone was reassurance in itself.

 

Drawing a deep breath, Ray admitted, "It was my idea that we dance.  Hell, it was my bright idea that you dress up like that..."

 

"I agreed to do both, Ray.  It would hardly be fair to hold you responsible."

 

Only Benny could be that fair.  Anyone else would have been berating him for the humiliating consequences of his dumb idea - and rightly so.

 

"I'm sorry if Mario embarrassed you," Ray offered anyway.

 

"He didn't.  I was just...startled.  It never occurred to me how...this would look to others," Fraser stiffly completed.  "Do you think he will mention me to your mother?"

 

"Jeez..." Ray sighed.  "I never thought of that.  Yeah, he'll mention you to my mother all right."

 

"I'm sorry, Ray," Benny repeated, sounding totally miserable.

 

"Don't be.  At least it will get her off my case."

 

"Oh?" Fraser gave one of those generic inquiries that covered a plethora of situations.

 

Ray felt his cheeks warm.  He hadn't meant to say that last bit out loud.  "She worries about me sometimes."

 

"Well, that's only natural, Ray.  You have a very dangerous profession.  As your mother –"

 

"It's not my profession that has her worried," Ray cut in. 

 

He didn't really want to talk about this, but he didn't want to be dishonest with Benny, either, especially not after how great Fraser had been about Mario.

 

"It isn't?"

 

"Ma worries `cause I don't date too much since Angie left me.  She doesn't like me being alone." 

 

Ray felt stupid and exposed for confessing such a thing.

 

There wasn't any of the gentle or not-so-gentle teasing Ray could have expected giving that line to any other guy.  Fraser didn't make him feel self-conscious or less of a man. 

 

All Benny gave was an understanding, "Of course."

 

Ray had never been so grateful for anything in his entire life.

 

As the Riv ate up the blocks between Mirage's and Fraser's, silence fell between them again, only this time it wasn't the uncomfortable kind.  Ray was almost disappointed when his partner's building came into sight.

 

As usual, the street out in front of Fraser's was empty.  No one who ever wanted to see their car again parked in this neighborhood – except for Ray Vecchio these days. 

 

Ray pulled to a stop in the empty space, then turned to his companion.

 

Benny was busy fussing with his purse, gym bag, and Dief's doggie bag. 

 

Ray just had to smile at the picture Fraser presented.  In that getup, the Mountie really did look like an absent-minded school teacher.

 

Fraser froze, as if sensing he were under observation.  Looking up at him through the thick artificial eyelashes, Benny said, "Thank you for everything, Ray.  I had a lovely evening."

 

Ray had to grin.  In those matronly clothes, Benny sounded and looked like a girl who didn't get out nearly enough. 

 

The gender issue aside, Ray realized that it was probably true.  Fraser really didn't do much just for fun.

 

"It was my pleasure.  Here, let me give you a hand with that," Ray said, taking the doggie bag and gym bag from Benny.  He was out of the car and opening Fraser's door for him in the blink of an eye.

 

"Thank you kindly, Ray," Benny said once he'd gotten to his feet.

 

Ray pulled back from the hands that reached for the bags.  "I'll get them."

 

"Ray, you don't have to –"

 

"What kind of escort would I be if I failed to walk my date to her door?" he joked, then reproved, "Fraser, I'm shocked at you.  Manners, Benny, manners.  It only takes a moment to be courteous, Benny."

 

Fraser laughed at Ray parroting his own words back at him, not one of those almost-laughs that the Mountie gave to be polite, but an all-out belly-laugh.  "Was I as bad as all that?"

 

"Worse," Ray answered, but he said it with a smile.  Making sure that the Riv was locked, he offered his arm to Benny, whose cheeks were still flushed with laughter.

 

The hallway was deserted as they entered.  This time of night, dead winter, even the thieves stayed indoors.  Predictably enough, the elevator wasn't working, so Ray trailed his partner up the rickety staircases to Fraser's third floor apartment.

 

Ray's eyes kept following the shapely length of Benny's panty-hose covered legs as his partner climbed the stairs in front of him, his gaze locking as often as not on the rhythmic sway of the pale blue dress and darker teal overcoat against the back of Fraser's thighs.

 

It wasn't something Ray chose to do.  Every time he'd consciously catch himself looking at Benny's legs, he'd guiltily pull his gaze away.  But self-discipline had never been his long suit.

 

Why he should need it while walking his best friend up the stairs was something Ray didn't want to examine too closely - just like most of the things they'd done tonight.  All he knew was that he'd had the time of his life with Benny this evening.

 

As they stopped in front of 3J, Dief pranced at their feet, the wolf visibly impatient for his steak.

 

"Thank you again, Ray," Benny murmured as they stood there in the drafty hallway just staring at each other.

 

That weird tension that had been ambushing them at odd moments all night was back again – tenfold.  The moment was awkward and exciting at the same time, sort of like those first few seconds when he'd held Benny in his arms to slow dance.  In the dim shadows of the grubby, ill-lit hallway, Ray looked at his friend, this man in women's clothing who'd become the focal point of his life these last two years.

 

Their gazes touched - and held.  Ray felt the breath freeze in his chest as he lost himself in those brilliant blue depths.

 

He couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. He'd seen Fraser's eyes a million times before.  Lord knew, he found himself yelling into those very eyes at least once a day.  Why they would suddenly give his limbs this rubbery sensation was a complete mystery.

 

Maybe it had something to do with the expression Benny was currently sporting, Ray thought.  Usually, Fraser's gaze was alert, but somehow distanced from the events around him.  Not that the man was in any way uninvolved.  Fraser was the most community-conscious person Ray had ever met, but even though Benny submerged himself in everybody's problems, solving most of them, Fraser still somehow managed to walk untouched through it all. 

 

Ray realized that it was because, as helpful as the Mountie was, Fraser didn't let people touch him inside.  That polite exterior and stiff upper lip approach to life kept people at arm’s length even more effectively than Ray’s own bad ass attitude.  What was also distancing was the fact that when it came to his own problems, instead of someone else's, Benny could be downright closed-mouthed.

 

But Benny wasn't hiding behind his observer's distance or politeness now.  Those mascaraed, made-up windows to the soul were completely open, revealing a loneliness and vulnerability that Ray could recall seeing revealed this plainly only once before.

 

Fraser had worn this very same look the night that Ray had brought Benny home for dinner for the first time, when he'd found the bereaved Mountie sitting alone in a diner, reading his murdered father's journal.  Then, as now, that lost expression moved Ray in ways he didn't fully understand. 

 

This man was too good, too pure to be so serious all the time.  If Ray had ever met anyone who deserved to be happy, it was Benton Fraser.  Yet his friend hardly ever laughed aloud and rarely did Fraser's smile light his eyes.  It was almost like someone had stamped the joy out of him at an early age, made Benny afraid to laugh or be silly.

 

"What's wrong, Benny?" Ray softly questioned, trapped by that look.

 

"I...I had an excellent time tonight, Ray."  Fraser seemed to stumble for an answer.

 

Not understanding what having fun had to do with his question about what was wrong, Ray asked, "And that makes you sad?"

 

"I wouldn't say ‘sad’ exactly," Fraser quickly corrected, but his eyes belied the protest.

 

"No?"

 

The Mountie never lied, not to a direct question.  So, instead of any further denials, Benny simply averted his gaze.  Ray watched those tastefully made-up lids sweep down to mask a vulnerability so deep that he couldn't even begin to understand it.

 

This guy was so complex, it was scary sometimes.  Behind that almost comical Dudley Do-Right embodiment of honor and integrity dwelt a flesh and blood man, with needs and weaknesses the same as any other.  But Fraser hid it all behind that perfect Mountie chimera, hid it so well that all most people ever saw was the Mountie, not the man.  The guise made Fraser seem simple, perhaps even simple-minded.  Ray had made the same mistake himself at first, but not anymore. These days he was mining for the real Benton Fraser, who was buried somewhere deep beneath all that politeness and proper protocol.

 

Ray had the feeling that he'd never been closer to finding the real Fraser than he was right now, standing before this man in drag.  Not that the real Fraser was a woman, or even a man who longed to be or dressed like a woman.  Ray suspected that the hidden Fraser was the man who had the courage to be different from all his peers, whether that difference was manifested in wearing an out-of-date Mountie uniform or putting on women's clothes to help out his friend.

 

Needing to assuage the sense of sadness that clung to his partner, Ray reached out for Benny's chin, gently raising that reluctant gaze to his own.  "You were going to tell me why having an excellent time tonight made you sad," he reminded him.

 

Fraser swallowed hard, then quietly offered, "Good times are so fleeting, Ray.  They're so rare that sometimes it seems that all that's left is..."

 

"The bad?" he suggested, knowing all too well what Benny was talking about.  They were both cops. In their line of work, they saw the dregs of society.  And Fraser had an even more bitter reality to deal with than Ray's own.  At least Ray was functioning to full capacity in his professional life.  Benny was almost an exile, condemned to a life of pointless drudgery at the Consulate, his incredible skills wasted, save for Fraser's extra-curricular activities with Ray.

 

Benny was the best lawman that Ray had ever seen. His status as persona non-grata in the RCMP had to be a hard pill to swallow each and every morning.  Lesser men would have quit or blown their brains out in Fraser's circumstances.  Ray knew that he wouldn't have lasted a month taking the shit Fraser put up with.  But not Benny, he just kept plodding on with his polite dedication, certain in his heart that it was all going to work out right in the end.

 

Or, maybe not so certain, Ray realized, watching those emotion torn eyes try to answer his question about what was troubling him.

 

"No, not bad, Ray.  It's the alone parts that are sometimes difficult, that sense of...always being the outsider in a crowd of laughing people."  That full lower lip was caught between perfect pearl white teeth and gently bitten.  "I don't suppose that makes much sense to someone like you-"

 

"I know what you're talking about," Ray said quickly. "But you're not alone anymore.  You got people to laugh with now.  Hell, my whole family's ready to adopt you."

 

Fraser nodded.  "I can't tell you how much I appreciate that, Ray."

 

But Ray knew that he'd still somehow missed the point here.  "That was too easy, Benny.  It isn't just having people to laugh with, is it?  If that were the case, there are about a thousand women you could be laughing with every night.  You've got girls tripping over themselves to catch your attention everywhere we go."

 

"But they don't know me, Ray." Benny followed the words up with a quiet, "No one does, not really."

 

"No?" Ray challenged.  "What about me?  I know you; don't I?"

 

Those eyes were on him again, digging into his very soul.  "Do you?"

 

"I'm standing here with a guy dressed up in women's clothes.  A guy I spent the whole night dining and dancing with.  Do you think there's another man in the whole world I'd do that with?  I know you, Benny."

 

Ray would have expected those fair cheeks to fill with color as they did almost every time Fraser was put on the spot emotionally like this.  But that was the Mountie chimera who blushed like a schoolgirl.  This Benny was far more honest than that; he stood firm and tall, his probing gaze relentlessly seeking truth.

 

After an eternity of that silent observation, Fraser allowed, "Perhaps you do, at that.  Perhaps that is why this evening's ending has left me...somewhat subdued."

 

Benny's ‘somewhat subdued’ probably translated into ‘deep, dark depression’ for normal people.  Wanting to vanquish that sadness, Ray quickly suggested, "So, who said anything about the night ending?  Invite me in for coffee."

 

Surprise flashed across those perfect features before Fraser recovered his equanimity.  The loneliness receded, replaced by something even more intriguing.  There almost seemed to be something playful in Fraser's gaze as Benny gently refused, "I don't think that would be a good idea, Ray."

 

"And why is that?  You said that thinking about the night being over made you...subdued.  It doesn't have to be that way."

 

"Yes, it does, Ray," Fraser quietly insisted.

 

"Why?"  Ray questioned, deciding that Constable Benton Fraser had to be the most frustrating individual on the entire planet.  Just when you thought you were finally beginning to get a handle on who and what Benny was, the guy would throw you another curve ball, like this sudden retreat.

 

Part of Ray was impressed by Fraser's sheer tenacity.  The guy never gave an inch, not ever.  But Ray's other half became strangely nervous as he lost himself in those bright eyes.

 

That weird tension was stronger now, the strongest it had been all night.  It was playing along Ray's skin like the charged air before a lightning storm, squiggling through his insides like a can full of worms.

 

It had the feel of something that was going to break soon - a storm or volcano blowing, something of that violent magnitude.  It was that kind of tense anticipation.  But anticipation of what, Ray didn't know.

 

Fraser's reply only made it worse. "Sometimes it's safer not to be too well known, Ray."

 

"Safer?" Ray whispered, practically vibrating under that invisible charge throbbing between them.  His breaths were even coming shallower now.  There was a tightness in his chest and throat that he just couldn't account for.

 

Apparently, Benny sensed whatever it was, too. 

 

Ray felt the shiver that wracked Fraser's bulkier frame as if it were his own.  And that playful, amused light was gone from his partner’s expression now.  Fraser looked dead serious once again, perhaps even anxious or...or frightened, if that were possible.

 

In retrospect, Ray realized that it hadn't been precisely amusement on Benny's face before.  The look had been more...flirtatious than that.

 

Flirtatious?

 

Ray stopped dead in his mental tracks and stared at the word.

 

Was that what was going on here, Ray wondered.  The breath froze in his tight lungs at the very thought.  He tried to dismiss it, then attempted to deny it, but he wasn't that good at self-deception.  He might be able to lie to the entire world about certain things, but very rarely did Ray Vecchio lie to himself.

 

Flirtation fit.

 

He'd been...courting Benny all night, and Benny had been receptive to it, Ray realized.  Just look at him, standing there now, all dolled up in women's clothes - because Ray had asked it of him.

 

With a loud gulp, Benny replied, "It's very late, Ray."

 

The almost scared tone to Fraser's voice spoke volumes to Ray.  Abruptly, it became clear to him that Benny was far more aware of what had been going on between them than he'd been himself.  Maybe that loneliness Benny had referred to had originally caused him to play along with Ray's strange request, but his partner would never have been able to leave it at that.  Fraser was always digging at things, analyzing everything to death.  It only stood to reason that his astute partner would figure out what was really going on between them first, and once Benny did, instant retreat was a given.

 

Ray knew that if he were smart, he'd let Benny go, only...nobody had ever said that Ray Vecchio was smart.  Impulsive, pig-headed, passionate, perhaps, but not smart.  Smart was Fraser's bailiwick.  So, he'd leave the smarts to Benny and follow his instincts, same as he always did, trusting that the head-on collision of their very different approaches would pull them through.

 

Putting a smile on his face, Ray demanded, "So it's late.  So what?  What's gonna happen?  You gonna turn into a pumpkin at midnight?"

 

"Midnight passed over two hours ago, Ray," Benny maddeningly informed as he took a step back towards his door.

 

Fraser was in full retreat mode, Ray recognized.  Something inside him told him that if he let Benny cut out now, things would never be the same between them again.  If ignored, this...tension, for want of a better word, it would twist their relationship until there was nothing of substance left to destroy.  Drastic measures were called for here.

 

"Benny?"

 

The controlled urgency in his voice seemed to halt Fraser's retreat.  "Yes, Ray?"

 

"Safe is alone.  Safe is standing apart and watching those other people laugh.  Safe is closing that door on us right now."

 

Each one of his words seemed to strike Fraser like a physical blow.  Beneath his makeup, Benny's face turned chalk white. 

 

"Have you considered the alternative, Ray?  Do you know what we're talking about here?"

 

"Yeah, we're talking about this!"

 

There was no thought to what happened next, no conscious decision on Ray's part.  One moment he was standing there staring into Benny's tormented gaze, the next, his body was following through like it had a hundred times before at this point in the dating ritual when he was lingering in a doorway with an uncertain companion.

 

With a sense of unreality, Ray found himself dropping Benny's bags to the floor as he leaned in to cover that shocked mouth with his own.

 

A number of things should have happened at that moment.

 

The first, of course, was that Fraser should have immediately pushed him off.  Then, depending on the Mountie's sensibilities, a furious fist should have landed in Ray's offending mouth; if not that, then Fraser should have frozen him out, turned on his high heel, and stalked away, or they both should have laughed at a bad practical joke taken way too far.

 

What should never have happened in a million years was for that frozen shock hardening Fraser's body to crumble into stunned acceptance.  That lipstick-painted, perfectly shaped mouth wasn't supposed to go all pliant and open up to suck Ray's tongue into its sweet depths.  Those hands were supposed to repel him, not clutch Ray's thin shoulders and pull him in tight.

 

And, if all of the above impossibilities did somehow transpire, then the straight-as-an-arrow, Italian cop with his good Catholic upbringing was damn well supposed to put an end to the lunacy immediately. 

 

What he wasn't supposed to do was thrust his tongue deep into Fraser's mouth or back the other man up against the door as he latched onto Benny's sturdy form like a drowning man clutching at driftwood.  Ray wasn't supposed to dig his fingers into Fraser's back or thrust his hips suggestively into the slit of Fraser's coat, pushing hard against the thin layer of dress covering Benny's thighs.  They weren't supposed to vacuum each other's mouths until they knew every tiny contour and every nuance of flavor in each other's spit. 

 

That was so not supposed to happen that Ray Vecchio's mind couldn't even comprehend what he was doing as it occurred.

 

At a point where pearl divers would have been envying their capacity to operate without oxygen, they pulled back for air.

 

Rasping in hard, harsh breaths, they simply stared at each other.  Fraser's hands were still clamped on his shoulders, while Ray's own were keeping a possessive hold on Fraser's waist.

 

Ray wondered if his expression were mirroring the scared/excited one his red-cheeked partner was currently sporting.  With his painted face and aroused blush, Benny looked wildly wanton, like one of the exotic hookers Ray had busted in the kinkier establishments.  Those transvestites had never turned Ray on in the past, but Benny...Benny left his knees weak.

 

And that was what it all came down to.  Benny turned him on - something fierce.

 

Making a conscious decision not to think, Ray's right hand left Fraser's waist to reach around his friend for the doorknob.  He pushed the lockless door open, paused a moment to kick the gym bag in, ignored the wolf's warning growl long enough to do the same for the half-eaten take-out container at their feet.  Then he backed Benny into the shabby apartment.

 

As Ray slammed the door behind them, Dief was already inside, finishing up the steak to the left of the door.

 

The only light in the flat was reflected streetlight spilling in through the shade-less, curtain-less window past the tiny table.  As was usual in Fraser's place, the damn thing was wide open, leaving the temperature just slightly above that of the freezing street.

 

In a normal place, Ray would have thumbed on the overhead light or turned on a reading lamp.  But although his partner had invested in the latter a few weeks after arriving in Chicago, the lamp had been broken when those thugs had sacked Fraser's place during the building's rent strike.  

 

In no mood to fuss with a kerosene lantern, Ray gave up on seeing clearly.  Moonlight and streetlight would have to do.  Anyway, the overwhelmed Ray wasn't too sure that what they were doing would stand up to too close an examination.  Madness and moonlight traditionally went hand in hand.

 

They were barely over the threshold when Ray used his hold on Fraser's hips to twist them about, so that his partner had his back to the door. Ray 's hands jumped to the sides of Fraser's face, framing it and holding it in place as his mouth swooped in to ravage those juicy depths again.

 

The sheer physicality of the man was overwhelming.  Those wide shoulders, the broad, artificially enhanced chest, the density of muscle...Ray had never pressed up against anyone so solid or so incongruously soft.  The muscle and bone beneath Fraser’s skin might be more solid than bedrock, but the flawless epidermis that covered it was softer than velvet.  And then there was the scent of the man.  Passion Flower perfume still dominated, but this close, Ray was able to catch Fraser's natural scent:  the salty sweat from their dancing, the clean, fresh aroma of Benny's skin oils, the fading bouquet of brown soap, the smells of the fabrics Benny was wearing and, underneath it all, the tangy whiff of arousal - a stringent, musky scent that Ray had only detected on Fraser once before, that horrible night when Victoria had shaken the foundations of their friendship, when the half-dressed Mountie had chased Ray's car up the block and leaned in the window to try to explain why he'd forgotten one of the most important events of Ray's admittedly pathetic social life.

 

Benny released a small, pleading sound into the kiss that might have been a protest.  Maybe if his partner had frozen up, Ray might have let him go, but Fraser was opening his mouth to Ray's probing tongue and meeting the foray, so he just kept on kissing.

 

God, this felt so good, so free...his body was on fire, and all they'd done was kiss.  It had never been this good, this fast.  Not with Ange, not with Irene, not with the dozens of women he'd conned into sleeping with him.

 

On some level, Ray knew that there should have been a ton of guilt associated with this act.  Fraser's sexual innocence aside, Ray's religion brought so much emotional baggage to this scenario that he should have been crippled by it.  Benny was another man, his best friend, a person who'd had limited sexual experience - any or all three of those reasons should have been sufficient to stop him in his tracks.  But, although Ray acknowledged each objection in his mind, he heeded none of them, living only for the incredible taste of Fraser's mouth.

 

The flavors were a subtle blend.  Lingering in the juicy depths were traces of the chicken; vegetables; sweet, coffee-flavored tiramisu; and the coke that Benny had consumed at dinner tonight.  Also, there was the faint hint of the lipstick Benny was wearing -  the lipstick that was now smeared all over both their mouths, Ray realized with a smile.  But more than all of that, it was that indefinable hint, that flavor that was the sheer essence of Benny himself that kept Ray drinking from that sweet font.  It was like a drug, a little bit of it getting into his veins and making him crave more, more, more...

 

Air once again becoming a priority, Ray reluctantly pulled back from the kiss, but this time he didn't disengage.  He gulped in some Passion Flower/Benny scented oxygen and fastened his mouth on that sleek white neck.

 

Benny's response to having his neck nuzzled was...startling.  Verbally, the normally self-possessed man loosed a sound that could only be classified as a whimper.  Then Fraser seemed to slide down the door he was backed up against, like his knees had gone straight out from under him.

 

Ray caught his partner and propped him up by the simple expedient of pressing his hips so tight against Fraser that the larger man couldn't go anywhere.  While he did so, he kept nuzzling and licking that salty throat, tasting the astringent remains of the fragrant perfume Benny was wearing.

 

Fraser's hands were clamped on his shoulders again, his head tossing back and forth as Ray devoured his neck, Ray’s own chest heaving like he'd just raced up twenty flights of stairs.

 

Ray was a little startled by the intensity of his partner's reaction.  He himself was moved by what they were doing, extraordinarily so.  But he was still coherent, still aware.  If he had to - and it might kill him to do so - Ray still could have walked away from this.

 

But Fraser seemed almost insensible.  When he glanced up at Benny's face, there was literally no one home.  There was no polite veneer, no alert watcher staring back.  All of his partner’s incredibly astute senses seemed focused totally on internal stimuli.  Benny's eyes were smoky and dazed looking, his cheeks flushed so bright with arousal that it made rouge look pale.  Fraser's lips were parted in a silent, permanent looking O, like Benny had been so shocked by the pleasure he was experiencing that he could barely draw breath.

 

Ray breathed out a relieved sigh.  His friend needed to let go and relax.  Ray was more than willing to give his reserved partner all the TLC the Mountie denied the lonely man living inside that perfect shell.  So, Ray feasted on that luscious throat for what had to be a good fifteen minutes before he raised his head again to check on Fraser's enjoyment of the experience.

 

At the cessation of nibbling, Benny's gaze sought Ray's.  For a confused moment, Fraser appeared to take stock of himself.  Slowly, the haze and heat of arousal cleared, beneath it raw fear showed.  "R-Ray?"

 

The unexpected fear brought Ray up short.  He didn't know if Benny were afraid of his own feelings, if the Mountie had changed Benny’s mind, or if he found Ray sexually repulsive, for all that he was enjoying the attention.  But, whatever the cause of that trepidation, Ray couldn't just ignore it.

 

He could have taken almost anything, including hate, but not fear.  He'd spent too many years as a victim himself to think of putting someone else in that role.  His insides gripped up like someone was closing their fist around his guts.

 

"Yeah, Benny?" he answered as soft and reassuring as he could.  The fingers of his right hand rose to stroke Fraser's cheek, showing the man his gentleness, demonstrating that Benny had nothing to fear from him.

 

"Ray..."

 

They were breathing the same breath their cheeks were resting so close together while Ray maintained only enough distance to stare into those troubled eyes.  It would kill him to stop, but he wasn't going to force this.

 

"You tryna tell me ‘no’ here, Benny?" Ray questioned. "Make it clear, baby, `cause in a few minutes there ain't gonna be any stopping."

 

"B-baby?" Fraser repeated, latching onto the only insignificant part of the question with his usual perversity.

 

"You mind?" Ray harshly challenged, dreading what would follow.  This had all the signs of a scene about to turn bad. Was the Mountie in Benny going to hand him his walking papers for orchestrating this insane situation?

 

But Benny just gulped and shook his head in a negative fashion.

 

Too wired to relax, Ray demanded, "No - what?  No don't call me that?  No, don't touch me again or I'll kill you?  No - what?"

 

Fraser dragged in a loud breath before rasping out, "No, I don't mind.  Your calling me that."

 

"Oh," Ray digested that, then offered a tentative smile, "that's okay, then."

 

Benny nodded, watching his eyes with a hungry - waiting to be hurt look that ripped right through Ray.

 

"But you're worried about something, Benny," Ray pointed out, stroking Fraser's temple.

 

"I've been here before, Ray."  The sad smile Fraser forced just about broke Ray's heart.

 

"You mean ‘here’ - with another man?" Ray asked, this not fitting in at all with the image he had of his partner.  In his mind, Benny was as pure as the driven snow, but Ray kept forgetting that that was the Mountie chimera and not the man behind it.

 

"No," Fraser clearly elucidated, "I never...not with another man."

 

Relieved, Ray cautiously probed, "Then what did you mean, Benny?"  He only prayed that the explanation had nothing to do with Inuits or any advice Fraser’s father had given him.  Both subjects had a way of bewildering the Chicago cop to the point where Ray could hardly remember what the original topic had been.

 

Of course, with their bodies pressed so tight together like this, there was very little chance of Ray forgetting what they were discussing, here at a time when there should be no talk.

 

"I meant here, with someone who logically should have no desire to share this with me," Fraser specified.

 

"What do you mean ‘someone who logically should have no desire’ - who's done that to you before?" 

 

The words were out before Ray had time to think about them.  He was just so mad at the idea of some stranger taking advantage of his sheltered friend that way that he couldn’t hold his question back.  Fraser was so trusting of strangers that he was practically a walking invitation to victimization.  That was one of the things that had made Ray stick so close to Benny when the Mountie had come to Chicago permanently.  Ray had never met a full-grown man more in need of a keeper than this perplexing, competent do-gooder.

 

The instant the sexual haze blanked from Fraser's eyes and that all-too-familiar closed in expression took its place, Ray knew whom they were discussing here.  Shit, he should have guessed it wasn't some nameless stranger who'd ripped Benny's heart out.

 

To save Benny the pain of dredging up all those old memories, he answered his own question, "Victoria, right?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Something about me makes you think of her now?" Ray tried to hold in his horror, but he really felt like puking.  Here he was, giving his all to Fraser, and somehow Benny was putting him in the same category with the bitch who'd set his partner up for Murder One and damned near destroyed both their lives?

 

Ray couldn't talk, let alone think about that woman while he was pressed tight to Fraser like this.  He didn't exactly abandon their embrace, but he took a good two steps back, just enough to give them some thinking room. 

 

The fact that Benny's knees didn't immediately give out on him again sort of indicated that the bitch's specter rising between them had doused the his ardor.

 

"Only the similarities in improbability," Fraser answered, his gaze seeming worried as he took in Ray's no doubt suddenly distant countenance.

 

"Huh?"

 

That didn't sound so bad.  At least Benny hadn't said that he kissed like the bitch or that both Ray and Victoria had enjoyed sucking on his Adam's Apple.  Ray thought he might be able to handle a similarity in improbability, or whatever the hell Benny had said - providing Fraser explained the damn riddle to him.

 

"I arrested Victoria Metcalfe eleven years ago; it ended badly between us.  Logically, when we met last spring, she should have hated me.  Yet, I allowed myself to be convinced that she truly desired me - to disastrous results." 

 

Benny seemed to be directing his explanation to Ray's chin, for his eyes never touched Ray's.

 

All the shame and guilt of that painful period were right there back in Fraser's attitude.  Ray hated seeing it there.  They'd worked so hard to get past all this, the betrayals, the shooting...but it never went away, not really.  It was always there right under the surface, shadowing everything from their laughter to their daily bickering.

 

"What's that got to do with anything happening between us here and now?" Ray asked, keeping a careful reign on his temper.  Just the mention of Victoria's name was usually enough to sour his day.  Having it raised here in a sexual situation worked better than the proverbial cold shower.

 

All Ray wanted to do was to get out now, so that Benny couldn't hurt him again the way it had hurt watching Fraser frantically chase Victoria’s departing train, knowing all the while that his best friend was running out on him, leaving Ray holding the bag.  But he forced himself to stand still, to stay close, if not actually touching.  "How do I remind you of her?"

 

They never talked about this.  That Benny would do so now, in this context, was...depressing.

 

"You don't, Ray.  There's nothing the least bit similar about you and Victoria."

 

True enough, Ray bitterly acknowledged.  He wasn't a beautiful woman who could twist Fraser around her little finger, who could mean more to the upright Mountie than his duty, his honor, or even the welfare of Fraser's best friend.  Ray knew that he was just the patsy who'd stuck around, the glorified taxi driver whose badge and jurisdiction allowed the exiled Mountie to do significant police work.

 

The desire to flee was almost irresistible.  Ray wanted to run, to keep what little pride he had left intact and get the hell out of here, but Benny's next words killed his incipient flight.

 

"You are misunderstanding me again, I fear," Fraser's voice was strangely thick.  The fingers that lifted to trace the hard, angry set of Ray's jaw were incongruously gentle.

 

Whatever Benny was trying to tell him here, it wasn't a put down, Ray realized.

 

"Am I?" he asked, more than willing to be convinced.

 

"Yes.  I didn't mean that you reminded me of Victoria Metcalfe personally," it sounded as though Benny were doing his damnedest to refer to the bitch like just another case they'd worked.

 

"You didn't?"

 

"No," Fraser replied, and he was telling the truth.  Ray could see it in the regretful expression furrowing that intelligent brow.

 

"Then what were you trying to say?"

 

"When I said that I'd been here before, I simply meant that...you have as little reason as she to...encourage this type of encounter," Fraser explained.

 

Like that was supposed to make sense, Ray thought. "I don't see the similarities here.  She hated your guts and wanted to destroy you.  I'd never do that.  You're my best friend, Benny."

 

"But you've never evinced the slightest interest in...pursuing this type of liaison with another man.  In fact, whenever circumstances have even suggested homosexual overtures, you were very careful to make your disinterest quite plain."

 

Ray knew what Fraser was referring to.  Somehow, he could read it right there in his partner's crystal blue gaze.  That instance when they were trapped together in a meat freezer was foremost in both their minds, with a thousand similar, less explicit incidents flowing after it.

 

"You chose a rack of freezing horse meat over sheltering in my arms," Benny reminded.  To his credit, Fraser didn't sound hurt or resentful, but his hazy gaze did reveal a certain amount of pain.

 

"It was nothing personal, Benny.  I barely knew you back then," Ray protested.  "I'm Italian; it's a cultural thing."

 

"And how has that changed?  You are still a product of your culture, Ray, still a practicing Roman Catholic." Fraser wasn't being mean about making Ray clearly face these issues, just relentless.

 

"I don't know how it's changed, Benny.  I just know that it has.  Those things just don't seem to matter all that much."

 

"Right now."

 

"Huh?" The somber tone focused Ray's full attention on his partner's troubled visage, his concern for Benny temporarily over-shadowing even his insecurities over Victoria.

 

"Passion makes sinners of us all, Ray, but...I will not cost you your immortal soul.  Your religion-"

 

Leave it to Fraser to kill a mood, but good.

 

But that was one of the things Ray respected most about his friend, Fraser's absolute refusal to just let his morals slide.  Neither the real man nor the Mountie in Benton Fraser would allow another person to put themselves in jeopardy without alerting them to the probable outcome beforehand.  It could be frustrating as hell at times, but it was a refreshing change from all the users Ray had encountered in his life.

 

Ray sighed.  "I know all about my religion, Benny.  I, ah...I'll deal with the consequences."

 

"You would risk eternal damnation to be intimate with me?" Benny was trying to be firm, but his obvious surprise softened the question.

 

"I can't believe that God would damn me for loving someone as good and honorable as you."

 

Something about his reply seemed to completely shock Fraser.  Doing a classic double-take, his sturdy body stiffened.  Then, Benny huskily questioned, "Loving?"

 

"Well, what else would you call it?" Ray challenged, standing firm under the gaze that scoured his skin right off him.

 

"I rather thought that you were attempting to appease my loneliness," Fraser cautiously stated.

 

"If that was all there was to it, you wouldn't be standing there in that dress right now."

 

"What?" Fraser almost looked like he was expecting to be mocked.

 

"Benny...look at you; look at what you've done for me.  For God's sake, you shaved your legs for me.  No one ever cared enough about me to put themselves out this way for me before," Ray hesitantly confessed as his gaze dropped. 

 

He cursed the hot flush he could feel burning his cheeks.  He knew that his skin was darker than Benny's, but the blush still showed.

 

Ray trembled deep inside as Fraser's right hand rose to tentatively stroke over the heated flesh of his cheek.

 

"Your friends could never say the same about you, Raymond Vecchio."

 

Confused by the contrast between the gentle touch and what basically amounted to a put down, Ray stammered, "Huh?"

 

"Your...generosity of spirit is quite astonishing.  You always extend yourself for those you care about - even when they are not worthy of your loyalty."

 

Fraser hadn't insulted him, after all.  It was pathetic, really, how his heart swelled with gratitude for those kind words.  He hated feeling like this, like a hungry stray just waiting for some crumbs to fall off someone's table.  Far too many times those scraps never fell his way.

 

Hell, who was he kidding?  No one had ever given him those words before or offered him that kind of respect.  Irene and Ange had come the closest to it, but even there, it had been his sense of humor and passion that had swept them off their feet.  Neither of the women Ray had truly loved had ever seen him as a noble figure.  Hell, his own wife had been willing to believe that he'd framed a suspect for a crime the man didn't commit.  That this kindest of men could find those noble qualities in him when his own wife and lovers had failed to was unbelievable.

 

Sounding as though he were attempting to get through everything he wanted to say before he ran out of courage, Fraser continued with, "I suppose that by assisting you in this strange manner on this case, I was attempting to prove to some degree that I am still worthy of your devotion."

 

Completely adrift again in the murky sea that was conversation with Benton Fraser, Ray was forced to ask, "What are you talking about, Benny?"

 

"Not so very long ago, I broke faith with you in a completely unforgivable, dishonorable manner."

 

Ray felt his insides freeze up as that familiar dread squeezed at his heart.  They were talking about Victoria again.  No matter what, it always came back to her with Fraser.  Probably always would.

 

"We've been over this a million times, Fraser.  Let's not go there again, not now," Ray pleaded.

 

"No, we haven't been over this, Ray.  We've skirted the issue a million times, but we have never openly discussed its ramifications.  I did something that hurt you, deeply.  I broke faith with you, jeopardized your career and family home-"

 

"You were in love, Benny.  People in love do stupid things," Ray cut in, not wanting to hear the rest.

 

Fraser continued as though he hadn't spoken, "Not once did I ever say I was sorry for what I did to you."

 

"Yes, you did.  When you were in the hospital, you-"

 

"I admitted that I was going with Victoria.  I never apologized for it."

 

"Oh," that was all Ray could get out, that small, hurt syllable.

 

"You see, at the time, I didn't feel I could apologize.  The scope of my transgressions aside, in my heart, I was still grieving for her loss."

 

"Ah," Ray adopted that convenient Canadian cover-all, but somehow it didn't seem quite as effective in this situation.  He knew that his voice carried too much pain to come across as knowledgeable and superior.

 

Fraser continued, as relentless and merciless as a passing twister, "And you never complained about my betrayal or threw it in my face, even when I took my bad mood out on you when I was in the hospital.  I never told you how much I appreciated...that you remained my friend after all that. You had every right to walk away and never speak to me again."

 

"Benny, you were in love," Ray repeated.

 

"And that excuses it?"  It was the self-righteous Mountie asking that question, the rigid rule follower who'd probably been torturing Benny for this mistake for the past eight months. 

 

Like Fraser needed this, Ray thought angrily, like the guy hadn't already been in hell with Victoria setting him up and running out on him and then having his best friend shoot him in the back.

 

"In my book it does," Ray countered, determined to make those words true.  He was going to try not to make those stupid comparisons anymore.  He wasn't going to indulge any lingering resentments.  Victoria was gone and he was here with Benny now.  Maybe Fraser would never feel the things for him that he'd felt for his first love, but he was still important to Benny on some level.  That was what he had to concentrate on.

 

"As I said, you have a very generous spirit, Ray."

 

Just wanting to get out of this painful conversation, Ray complained, "I still don't understand what any of this has to do with..." if Ray himself couldn't say it, there was no way he'd get the shy Mountie to go through with it, "...us going to bed together."

 

Benny's tongue tip poked out to moisten his lower lip.  Normally, the gesture was a sure sign of nervousness, but in this instance, it was extremely provocative.

 

"I suppose that in my own inept, stumbling manner, I am attempting to assure you that...that I am sorry for what I did to you.  You need to know that I...deeply value your worth, that I am not doing this out of loneliness or boredom or rampant hormones."

 

The last wasn’t even an issue with Ray.  He was perfectly happy to have someone go to bed with him out of sheer lust.  His refined partner was the one who would have a problem with such superficial motivations.  There was, however, one thing Ray needed to know.

 

"Or guilt?" Ray added, for that would be the worst reason of all.

 

"Or guilt," Fraser confirmed, his tone unbearably tender.

 

"You're not?" Ray softly questioned, almost afraid of the answer.

 

"No.  I don't have casual romantic liaisons, Ray, and I certainly don't use intimacy as an act of contrition."

 

"Then...why?  Why me?  Why now?"

 

Benny's genuine surprise at his insecure inquiry was quite heartening.  "Why now - because this is the first instance when the issue has risen between us.  Why you - who else but you, Ray?  I have built my entire world around you."

 

“You...what?” Ray gaped, uncertain if he’d heard correctly.

 

“Ray, you are the best human friend I’ve ever had.   Your kindness and support are the only things that allowed me to make the difficult transition here at all.  Without you, my life would be...” Benny paused, as if to decide how best to phrase this, “a joyless void, filled only with drudgery and disappointment.”

 

Ray tried to ignore the seductive statement, insisting on the full truth, "Then why did you stop us before, if you want this, Benny?  You knew I wanted it."

 

"I didn't want us to make a mistake.  I could feel that you desired...to be intimate with me, but..."

 

"But?" Ray prodded.

 

“This is important to me,” Fraser took a deep breath and appeared to plunge in with both feet.  "I don't have any right to ask this, but what I was really trying to ascertain here is some assurance that...this will have similar...meaning to you.  The aloneness is far worse after intimacy.  I don't think I could bear it again, not so soon..."

 

Ray couldn't remember this man ever confessing a weakness before.  If the circumstances were different, Ray might have made light of the historic occasion, but he knew how hard all of this was for his partner. 

 

Fraser hardly ever even admitted that he had feelings at all.  This discussion had to be killing him.  And Benny had approached the topics in a manner that made Ray the more comfortable party; there hadn't been a single anecdote or Inuit story in the entire encounter, even though Benny was in desperate need of emotional support and usually hid his true feelings behind those anecdotes.  Fraser had laid his heart bare on the line here - for his, Ray Vecchio's sake.  It was humbling.

 

Ray's gruff tone came nowhere near encompassing the fond affection he felt for his friend at the moment as he asked, "You asking me my intentions, Benny?"

 

"I...yes.  Yes, I am."

 

It was almost ludicrous to watch how Fraser drew up to his Mountie straightness in that pretty blue dress as Benny asserted himself with his typical endearing half-heartedness.  His partner could be an avenging angel when he was fighting for the rights of the down-trodden, but ask him to stand up for himself and in most instances Fraser would fold, or do it in such a way as to almost be apologizing for the necessity.

 

Ray was proud of his partner.  At least Benny hadn't prefaced his declaration with an ‘I'm sorry.’  After a moment’s thought, he asked, "Is my word enough to convince you that my intentions are honorable?"

 

Ray wondered if he were going to have to go through some trial period of formal courtship to prove himself.  If he were Benny, he'd demand it.  They both knew that Ray was less than scrupulous when it came to affairs of the heart.

 

But Benny, God bless both him and his faith, required no such guarantees.  "Your word would be more than sufficient.  Do I have your word, then?"

 

Worried as to just what he was agreeing to here, Ray questioned, "Maybe you should be a little more specific as to what I'm promising.  When you say ‘intentions’, are you talking about what I'm feeling now?  `cause I swear to you, Benny, that all I have is love in my heart for you right now.  I'm not working to overthrow you here.  Or are we talking ‘intentions’ as in love-honor-and cherish, till death do us part commitment here?"

 

In retrospect, the latter option actually seemed far more probable with this straight-laced individual.  When had he known Fraser to do anything by half-measures?  A marriage proposal up front was far more his partner's style.

 

That Benny hadn't done so before having sex with Victoria was merely due to the bitch's personality.  Ray had seen enough of Metcalfe to know that she'd probably jumped his sheltered friend's bones before Benny even knew what was happening.  Unlike Ray, who wanted Benny to be sure of what they were doing, Victoria hadn't wanted Fraser to have time to think things through.

 

Fraser's forehead crinkled up like a prune as he thought about Ray's question.  Finally, Benny quietly offered, "The love in your heart is more than enough, Ray, providing you are certain that our entering into such an...encounter will compromise neither our friendship nor your self-respect."

 

Ray felt his throat tighten up at that.  For whatever reason, Fraser wanted him enough to cast his normal play-it-safe, traditional principles aside.  Benny hadn't dispensed with his morals, just the strictures that vanquished spontaneity.

 

Swallowing hard, Ray softly replied, "You could never compromise me, Benny."

 

That damn shadow once again darkened those incredible eyes with sorrow.

 

Ray hated seeing it there, hated the sense of honor that forced his friend to once again stiffly remind him of that one stupid error.

 

"I have before."

 

"And I've let you down a thousand times to your one mistake, so let's not go there again, all right?"

 

"No, you haven't," Fraser denied.

 

"What do you mean?  Of course, I have," Ray argued.  From the day he’d been born, he’d been letting people down one way or another. 

 

"No, Ray," Benny insisted in that soft, incontestable way of his, "you haven't, not ever, not when I was really counting on you."

 

Although warmed by the assertion, there was something inside him that forced Ray to challenge it, "You told me that time we were going to drown in that locked bank vault that I'd let you down."

 

"A failure to read my mind in a plan we hadn't discussed beforehand does not constitute letting me down, no matter what I might have believed at the time," Fraser corrected.

 

"You mean to tell me that you were talking about my picking the Chevy instead of the Pontiac on that used car lot?  That was the deep, dark unmentionable let down?"  Ray barely kept the words below a shout, unable to believe that that stupid incident when they'd been undercover selling used cars was what Benny had been referring to in that vault.  And here Ray had been racking his brains for months trying to come up with some huge failure on his part. "Do you know that I didn't sleep right for weeks trying to figure out what I'd done wrong!"

 

"I'm sorry, Ray," Benny appeared genuinely disturbed. "I told you that the incident was all but forgotten."

 

Feeling an incipient tirade raging just below the surface, Ray took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.  Losing his formidable temper was in no way going to help this situation now.  Besides, that was simply the way Benny was, exasperating, stead-fast...adorable.

 

The tentative expression on that exquisite face with its smudged lipstick more than fell into the latter category.  Benny looked like he was braced for Vesuvius to erupt.

 

"Ah, Benny," Ray smiled, stepping in close.  "You'd drive a saint to drink."

 

That smooth brow puckered up again.  "I fail to understand how..." The words faltered into a loud gulp as Ray's approach brought the front of their bodies into full contact.

 

"Benny..."

 

"Yes, Ray?"

 

"Shut up," Ray whispered, his lips homing in on Fraser's.

 

Benny's mouth always looked like a work of art, a perfect flower painted by one of the masters to compliment the strong perfection of the Mountie's features.  But it had never looked more so than tonight, when all that mussed up pink lipstick made Fraser's lips look like the artist had smeared the wet oil paints a bit.

 

"Yes, Ray," Fraser responded with suspect meekness, seemingly hypnotized by something in Ray’s approaching gaze.

 

There was no more talk as Ray feasted on that succulent mouth.  Awkwardness was a thing of the past as Ray gathered his unresisting partner into his arms.

 

As he had on the dance floor, Fraser seemed to soak up the closeness of the embrace.  The simple holding of their bodies so close together seemed as important to Benny as the passion of their kiss. 

 

That innocent wonder was something Ray cherished, for being close to him had never meant as much to anyone as it seemed to matter to his partner.

 

The kiss deepened to a slurpy, wet intimacy.  Ray's hands went into action, stroking and exploring everything they touched.  He slid the teal coat from Fraser's broad shoulders, dropping it to the floor at their feet.  Ray worked his own coat off one-handed next, while his other hand madly searched the back of Fraser's dress for the fastenings.  No zipper, no buttons, how...

 

With a comical popping sound, Fraser detached his mouth from Ray's long enough to breathlessly whisper, "Down the front.  It buttons down the front."

 

Shaking his head at the prim, old-fashioned garment, Ray moved his hands in between them to undo the thing.  His fingers were clumsy as sausages as they worked the delicate buttons.  His head bent over his partner's bulging, fake cleavage, Ray tried very hard not to tear the fabric, even though a part of him just wanted to rip the dress apart to get at Fraser.

 

Ray's whole body shuddered as Fraser's fingertips lightly skimmed the fuzzy stubble covering his scalp.  The delight ripping through him didn’t help his concentration any as he struggled with the tiny buttons.

 

"I like the new hair style, Ray," Fraser whispered as Ray did his best to undo the dress.

 

Distracted by the compliment, Ray looked up with a surprised, "You do?"

 

"Yes, it's very...masculine, very aggressive."

 

It was all Ray could do to keep from puffing his chest out with pride at the assessment.  Still, honesty forced him to admit, "It was born of necessity, I'm afraid.  It was getting too thin to do anything with, short of combing it up from the back to cover the bald top.  I always thought that was pretty pathetic.  I figure if you can't fight encroaching hair loss, you might as well go all the way and chose to be bald.  Make it a statement, you know?"

 

Benny's bewildered expression told him that such vanity was lost on Fraser.  Hell, with a pelt like that, the guy was never gonna have to worry about a receding hairline.

 

Still, Benny appeared to understand how important such concerns were to him, for Fraser's face gentled.  His voice was very soft as he murmured, "Your appeal far exceeds a full head of hair, Ray.  A man as attractive as you has no need of stylistic crutches.  No matter what the transitory fad might be, your natural assets shine through."

 

"You think?" Ray felt himself flush like a schoolgirl. Anyone else, he would have thought they were giving him a snow job, but Benny never lied.

 

"I know," Fraser corrected.

 

"You really think I'm good looking?"

 

"Exceptionally so.  Your bone structure, your slender grace, your high, intelligent brow... and your eyes, Ray... Your eyes..."

 

Words seemed to fail his articulate friend.

 

As Ray glanced up from the buttons to meet his partner's gaze, Fraser seemed to lose himself to the eyes in question.

 

Ray tried to take it in stride.  He knew of the two of them, he was far more sexually experienced, but no one had ever looked at him before like he was Mel Gibson. 

 

Going into a relationship, Ray was always uncomfortably conscious of his limited sexual appeal.  He wasn't exactly ugly, but he'd always known that he was no great winner in the looks department.  Where other men might trade easily on their natural physical appeal, Ray had always had to work at being attractive.  Clothes, charm and personality had always made up for a dearth of natural resources.

 

Fraser was the first lover he'd ever had who didn't look at him, make comparisons, and find him wanting.  To the contrary, Benny's eyes were devouring him like he was the most beautiful thing the demented Mountie had ever seen.

 

Maybe with another guy that sort of attention would have made him nervous, but there was nothing lascivious about Benny's observation, nothing predatory or threatening.  Instead, Benny's face was touched with an innocent appreciation, an ingenuous sense of wonder that made Fraser seem very young, very vulnerable.  It was an expression that should have been inspired by some natural wonder, like those stupendous mountains in Fraser's backyard at home.

 

That skinny, old Ray Vecchio was responsible for that look was more than the insecure cop could credit.  Ray couldn't figure out what he'd ever done to deserve this kind of devotion from the kindest and most noble person he'd ever met.  Even though it saddled him with one of the heaviest responsibilities Ray had ever shouldered, Fraser's innocent appreciation turned him to mush in a way that no other lover's interest ever had.  Benny made him feel like a complete novice, like he’d never been touched before.

 

Drowning in that loving appraisal, Ray made a shocking discovery.

 

This was it.  This irritating man standing here in women's clothing was the love he'd searched for his entire life.  His heart had known it before on the dance floor when he'd relaxed into Benny's arms and felt like he'd finally come home.  It had just taken his mind a little longer to catch up.

 

The shock of his discovery must have shown. 

 

Obviously, Benny read something in his expression, for Fraser tentatively questioned, "Ray?"  

 

The worry in his gaze made it plain that Fraser feared that Ray had changed his mind. 

 

“Let me love you, Benny?  Let me take you to bed and lay you down,” he practically begged, even though he'd already received Fraser's tacit consent.

 

It was amazing how expressive Fraser's normally bland visage could be once you learned to read the nuances.  His words seemed to overwhelm his partner, for Fraser gulped and opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words emerged.  Then Benny pushed off the door he was slumped against and took a decisive step into the room, his heels clicking loud and strange on the bare floorboards.  Halfway to the bed, Fraser paused and held out his right hand to Ray in open invitation.

 

Although Benny's features were etched with determination, almost composed, his blue eyes were torn with emotion, like Fraser knew that this was something they were never going to be able to undo.  If they screwed this up, they were going to lose everything.

 

On his way to take that hand, Ray shouldered out of his suit jacket, tugged off his tie and shoulder holster, never breaking that gaze for a moment.  He left the clothes and gun slung crookedly over the back of one of the Mountie's straight back chairs.

 

Although Fraser kept his right hand extended, his left moved to the front of the dress he wore, easily undoing the fastenings that Ray had experienced so much trouble with.

 

Ray watched those square, competent hands move.  They were the only giveaways in this charade as far as Ray was concerned, for they were not a women's hands.  The skin on those hands was roughened from hard manual labor, dry and red from exposure to the cold.  The knuckles of the right hand were even bruised, from the fight in the cellar before, Ray realized.

 

When those hands finished with their task, the prim, blue, school-teacher dress was open to Fraser's waist. 

 

Ray gulped at the sight of that lacy, snow white slip against Fraser's artificially enhanced chest.  Because Fraser was wearing the silky undergarment, you couldn't tell that the breasts were fakes yet, the lacy slip with its prudish square neck hid the bra that well.  The view was a little kinky, but titillating all the same.  It wasn't so much the familiar swell of bosom that got to Ray, but the picture of all that white lace resting against Benny's perfect sternum.   

 

Although Ray had never thought about it before, something about white lace suited Benny.  Maybe it was the almost virginal innocence Fraser projected, a purity that ran bone deep that nothing in this world was able to sully or stain because it was the bedrock of this man's soul.

 

Ray took hold of his partner's offered hand in both of his.  He lifted it up, examining the thick yellow calluses on the inside of the palm beneath the bend of the fingers.  There were three of the big, round, ugly protrusions.

 

"Francesca suggested that I try a skin softener to remove them," Fraser inanely commented, his nervousness almost palpable.

 

That one, small show of insecurity made Ray feel immensely better.  He'd always thought guys as good looking as Fraser had no reservations about getting undressed for the first time with a new lover.  Of course, his Mountie wasn't the typical good-looking cad, but it was heartening, all the same.

 

"Nah, leave `em alone.  I like them," Ray insisted.

 

"You do?" Fraser blinked.

 

Ray didn't know how to play this.  With a real woman, he'd lift that hand to his lips and kiss the tissue to prove his point, but...Fraser wasn't a real woman.  He was the manliest man he had ever encountered, a Mountie, for God's sake.  Ray couldn't treat Fraser like he was a girl, and yet...

 

Benny was more refined and had more delicate sensibilities than any woman Ray had dated.  Guys didn't act like Fraser did anymore, neither did women.  Benny was almost a holdover from a different, more refined age.  Fraser's manners and deportment were certainly good enough to impress a Victorian spinster.  It was like having his mother or grandma along sometimes.

 

But Fraser was still a guy.  You didn't go around acting schmultzy with another man.  Even if you kept your teeth, you were sure to insult their manhood, but, on the other hand, how much machismo did a guy standing in high heels and a dress radiate?  When they'd been out in public with Fraser clothed this way, Benny had insisted that Ray treat him with the courtesy Ray would accord a lady.  Was Benny going to be insulted if he carried that over into the bedroom, he wondered.

 

It was a conundrum the likes of which Ray had never faced.  He didn't want to insult Fraser's manhood, but at the same time he didn't want to deny his new lover anything simply on the grounds of Fraser's gender.  That wouldn't be fair to either of them.

 

Ray stood there holding Benny's hand, torn by his conflicting impulses.  At last, he remembered how miffed Benny had been before about Ray's being picky enough to want the woman he dated to actually be a woman.  It wasn't a lot to go by, but it gave him the courage to follow his impulses.

 

Moving incredibly slowly, giving the other man every opportunity to snatch his hand free if Fraser found the sentimental gesture too sappy, Ray raised his partner's hand to his mouth and placed a soft kiss on the most ragged callous.  He was almost frozen with apprehension as he anticipated rejection.

 

The gasp Benny released came as a complete shock.  Those stocky, strong fingers curled around Ray's face.  Benny's fingertips stroked the cop's stubbled cheek like it was something precious, basically gracing Ray with the same tender attention Ray was paying his partner.

 

Enjoying the salty flavor of Benny's palm, Ray kept up the light rimming of that rough skin until he felt his friend stumble.  Realizing that they were standing still and, therefore, there was no reason for Fraser not to be stable, he glanced questioningly up at his partner's face.

 

Benny's eyes were closed tight, his lipstick smeared lips parted in a silent "oooh" as he visibly focused every bit of his attention on internal sensation. 

 

Stunned, Ray recognized that it was what he was doing that had caused that unsteadiness in this man who could balance on a tightrope.  In fact, now that he looked closer, he could see that Benny was swaying ever so slightly, like he might topple over any second.

 

Just the touch of his tongue on what was probably the roughest portion of Fraser's entire body made Benny’s knees weak?  Knowing that he could affect his cool, restrained partner so deeply sent a rush of dizzying excitement through Ray's own loins.  The feeling was more intoxicating than any wine or drug he knew.

 

Benny was probably the most sought-after man Ray had ever met.  It stunned him to think that he had what it took to melt the most desired man on the planet's frosty distance.  A little unsteady himself at that acknowledgment, Ray lifted his face from Fraser's palm.  At this rate, they were gonna fall over onto the hard floor any second.

 

Fraser’s eyes snapped open, disappointment and alarm written all over the normally controlled features.

 

Almost wilting under that look, Ray took hold of his partner's elbows.  That anxiety told him that he and Benny were both the same - they were both utterly terrified that they were gonna do something to blow this.

 

Ray leaned in to place a quick kiss of reassurance on those sumptuous lips.  Predictably, he found himself delving deeper, sampling the juicy sweetness of that mouth.

 

Without breaking the kiss, Ray shuffled Fraser backwards to where he knew Benny's narrow bed to be.  The short, solid object that stopped them could only be the mattress.

 

Ray almost had to tear himself free of that hungry mouth to make certain.  The soft moan Fraser gave at the parting made Ray's blood shiver through his veins like quicksilver.  A fast glance to guarantee that he wasn't about to push his partner down onto the stove or kitchen sink, and Ray eased Fraser onto the neatly made bed.

 

Benny sat, then reclined onto his back as Ray followed him down.  Ray carefully settled himself on top of his larger friend, his hands and mouth reclaiming Fraser with the eagerness of a junkie pushing the needle's plunger home.

 

The feel of all that hard, hot flesh beneath him was incredible.  Their bodies seemed to have been sculpted for this fit.  After an initial adjustment to accommodate knees and elbows, there was no awkwardness.  Ray’s left leg lay snuggled between Fraser’s thighs, Ray’s hungry groin resting on Benny’s left hip.  The position was comfortable, surprisingly so. 

 

While they explored each other’s tonsils, Fraser’s hands ran restlessly up and down the length of Ray’s back, as if Benny were constantly trying to reassure himself of the reality of the embrace.

 

After a breathless eternity, Ray finally pulled back from the kiss for some air.  His every sense was reeling - from kissing Benton Fraser.  

 

It was the most bewildering, incredible discovery of his life.  Feeling these things about Fraser was like finding out that the lucky rock you’d carried around in your pocket since boyhood was really a diamond in the rough.  It was hard to figure that something you’d looked at every day for the last two years could suddenly rock your entire reality like this, could leave you so shaken with excitement that you could barely breathe.

 

Wanting to share the wonder of the moment, he stared at his partner's face.  But Fraser's eyes remained closed.

 

Benny was panting like a racehorse approaching the home stretch.  His faultless skin was gleaming with a light sheen of perspiration that gave him a glow.  With his wig slightly askew and his makeup a mess, Fraser should have looked ludicrous.  Instead, the disheveled Mountie was the most arousing sight Ray had ever seen.

 

Ray reached up, gripped the sides of the light blue dress, then slid it slowly off Fraser’s broad shoulders.  Although Benny seemed okay with what they were doing, Ray moved carefully, not wanting to startle or alarm his less experienced partner with too aggressive a move.

 

He needn’t have worried.  Fraser’s hips raised up almost eagerly to help him get rid of the dress.  While Ray was sliding the garment down the silky, hairless legs, he became aware of a few other familiar impediments.  Benny still had on his high heels and those damn panty hose.

 

After tossing the dress off the side of the bed, Ray took hold of Fraser’s right ankle.  Lifting the foot slowly up, he gently eased off the delicate woman’s shoe.  Released from the no doubt tight prison of the leather, Fraser’s toes flexed. 

 

Through the beige net of the panty hose, Ray could see how painfully red the skin on Benny’s toes were.  A little guilty, he realized that those skinny shoes must have been killing Fraser’s feet the entire time they’d been tripping the light fantastic.  And Benny had never said a word in complaint, not that he ever would.

 

“Ah, Benny, you’re gonna have blisters there,” he sighed.

 

“It’s nothing, Ray,” Fraser assured, reaching down to stroke the Ra’s lightly stubbled scalp.  Benny really seemed to like the feel of that peach-fuzz stubble.

 

Nothing? 

 

Shivering under that sensual touch, Ray stared at Benny’s big toe.  The skin was more than red there.  It looked as though a blister had formed and popped while they were dancing. 

 

So much for his great idea, Ray decided, disgusted with his own selfishness.  How could he have asked Fraser to put this stuff back on?  What had he been thinking?

 

Needing to make some form of amends, Ray lifted Fraser’s foot up towards his mouth.  This wasn’t something he’d ever done with anyone before, not even his wife. 

 

The nylons were sweaty and clammy, smelling very strongly of Benny’s feet.  They weren’t very nice to know at the moment.  Nevertheless, Ray placed a tender kiss beneath his partner’s toes.

 

Fraser’s entire body jerked in reaction as he released a stunned gasp, “Aaaah....”

 

Smiling at Fraser’s helpless response, Ray lifted Benny’s other foot, tossed the tight shoe over the side of the bed, and repeated the action.  That foot looked even worse for wear, appearing almost scarlet around the toes.

 

It was bizarre, Ray had shot men and felt less remorse than he did for those stupid blisters.  In the cosmic scheme of things, Ray knew the small hurts were unimportant.  In a week, maybe less, they’d be completely gone.  But he still felt consumed by guilt that Benny had suffered these hurts on his behalf...at his request. 

 

Filled with an odd tenderness, Vecchio closed his eyes and pressed the arch of Fraser’s sweaty foot against his cheek and just held it there for the longest time, breathing in the not-quite-unpleasant scent.  He’d never wanted to be this close to anyone in his entire life, never wanted to share something like this, but with Benny...even the guy’s sweaty feet turned him on - which was god damned weird.

 

When at least he opened his eyes to look up the length of Fraser’s body to his partner’s face, he found Benny’s heated and slightly unfocused gaze watching him. 

 

Fraser was lying there in his snow white, lacy slip, his legs askew, his breathing frenzied as he watched Ray Vecchio hold his foot with the spellbound attention another man might accord a lover who was masturbating in front of him. 

 

His own breathing catching at that dazed expression, Ray left the foot pressed to the side of his cheek.  With hard-won control, he slid both of his hands up the inside of Benny’s smooth legs.  

 

Ray shivered when he reached the lacy hem of the slip. 

 

It was quite possibly the kinkiest sight he’d ever seen - this powerful man’s man lying here with his legs spread wide, wearing nothing but a frilly slip and some women’s undergarments. 

 

Once, just the idea of a guy dressed this way would have revolted Ray, but not tonight.  He could barely hold it together.  He was so hard inside his pants that he felt like he’d pop any second.  He shaking so desperately with excitement that he could barely breathe as he finally slid his hands up under that lacy barrier of propriety. 

 

Fraser whimpered as Ray’s fingers skimmed over his inner thighs, his legs splaying even further apart.  Both partners gasped as the knuckles of Ray’s right hand bumped into Fraser’s erection.  Benny was so big, so hard that it felt like he was going to bore a hole right through the nylons.

 

Unable to resist, Ray cupped the hot flesh in his palm, giving it a tentative squeeze.

 

The piercing cry Fraser released at that point shot right through Ray.  He’d heard the Mountie take a bullet without making a sound like that.  Knowing that he could get past this restrained man’s barriers that much was an incredible turn on.

 

Not that Ray needed any extreme stimulation at this moment.  He was shaking so hard with desire that he could barely keep himself from jumping his partner’s bones.  It was only the fear of where such unrestrained passion would lead that allowed Ray to keep himself in check. 

 

Benny might be wearing a slip and nylons, but he was no woman.  This could not go where Ray’s other dates had gone at this point.

 

So, Ray got himself back under some form of control and reached for his original objective - the hem of the panty hose.  He peeled the clingy garment off like the expert he was.  He didn’t snag the delicate material on his own nails or Fraser’s toe nails. 

 

Benny sighed once he was released from the no doubt itchy nylon.

 

Fraser’s bare feet now in his aroused lap, Ray sat back and stared up the length of his friend’s body.  With the dress removed, it was easier to see the masculine lines of Fraser’s well-developed shoulders and neck.  But the slip and bra still concealed Benny’s torso, adding a  provocative edge of nebulosity to his partner’s sexual gender.   Fraser could be a guy in drag - or an unfortunately muscular woman. 

 

That hint of uncertainty added something of an edge to the experience that was difficult to define.

 

Ray was almost frightened by his own arousal.  A guy in a slip should not turn him on.  That was not...normal.  At least, not normal for him.  But it wasn’t just the fact that this was a guy in a slip that had him so hot.  It was the fact that it was Benton Fraser lying there moaning that got to him. 

 

The wig, the slip, the bra, they were all incidental.  Touching Benny was what turned him on.  And, yes, there was the incontestable factor of this unusual kink added in, but it was Benny that was getting him hot.  Not the slip, although that was proving an unexpected turn on.

 

Still a bit uneasy and needing further reassurance of his partner’s identity, Ray reached up to carefully tug the wig from Fraser’s head.  Miss Fraser’s long, auburn hair went the way of the dress and shoes, tossed off the side of the bed without pause. 

 

Fraser just blinked at the action, but made no complaint.  His partner seemed beyond speech.  Benny was seemingly content to follow wherever Ray led.  

 

Ray stared at the sweaty cap of hair that was plastered to Benny’s skull.  Fraser’s pelt was lank and soggy at the moment, but it was blessedly familiar. 

 

Why Ray required that further proof of his companion’s masculinity, he didn’t know.  Logically, as a previously completely heterosexual male, he should have been trying to de-accentuate Fraser’s masculinity, maybe by going so far as to refuse to remove any of his partner’s clothing, then insist that the man in drag give him a blow job.  It would have been just like doing a girl that way; Ray would never have known the difference.  That would have been what any other guy from his neighborhood would have done in a scene like this, he knew. 

 

But he wasn’t like those guys anymore.  Fraser had taught him things about himself that those goombahs never took the time to learn.  Fraser’s path wasn’t the easier of the two, for it allowed no excuses and took you places you might not be comfortable going.  But if you found the guts to walk that path, it made you a better man.  And you never had to lie awake anymore at night second-guessing yourself about what you could have done to make a difference, if only... 

 

There were no if onlys in Fraser’s world.  You saw what had to be done and you did it -  period, end of discussion.  Standing up for what you felt was right, that was what made you a man. 

 

And at this moment, what was right was making love to Fraser.  In a slip or out of it.  It didn’t matter. 

 

Finding that certainty inside himself, Ray once again lifted his partner’s leg up. 

 

The removal of the panty hose had taken away most of the sweat.  Fraser’s foot was moist and cool now as Ray pressed a kiss to the almost delicate curve of arch.

 

The sound Fraser made at that was a small, desperate, animal noise of pure pleading, like this was the most exquisite sensation his reserved friend had ever experienced. 

 

And, who knew?  Maybe it was. 

 

Ray was pretty sure that Victoria had been Fraser’s only lover.  That self-serving bitch hadn’t struck him as the kind to indulge in much foreplay, certainly not where the male was the recipient of the pleasures.  Ray figured that, like the whore she was beneath that stunning exterior, Victoria had probably gotten straight down to business with Fraser.     

 

So, while Ray might never have feasted on anyone’s feet like this before, he did so now with Fraser, because Benny deserved the attention.

 

As he kissed the soft skin there, Ray was struck by a weird memory.  Frannie had been into some New Age healing mumbo jumbo a while back.  During that fad, she’d insisted that the entire body was controlled by the bottom of the feet.  Ray had always dismissed that nonsense as the lunacy it was - until tonight. 

 

When he placed that nearly chaste kiss on the tender skin of Benny’s instep, Fraser’s whole body jumped like a galvanized frog.  The long, pronounced, “Aaaaahh...” that Benny released sounded more like Ray had squeezed his cock than kissed his foot.

 

“You like?”  Ray couldn’t help but smile as he voiced the most redundant question of his life.  There was no doubt that his partner had loved what he’d just done.

 

“Aaaah, Ray...”  That seemed to be all Fraser could get out.  This man, who had the vocabulary and skill of a Victorian orator, appeared to have been struck wordless by Ray’s kiss.

 

Almost intoxicated by the rush that gave him, Ray kissed his way over the solid bone of Fraser’s ankle, then up the athletic calf. 

 

Benny was groaning like a woman in labor.  His hands had left Ray’s body.  Fraser’s square fingers were presently digging into the bedclothes.  They were helplessly scratching at the bold stripes of the blanket as he spread his legs wider for easier access.

 

The move was not wasted on Ray.  He almost lost it when his trail of nibbling kisses reached Fraser’s knees and those sturdy thighs opened wide to him. 

 

Sweating like a pig, he got his head down in between those splayed thighs, so he could kiss his way up the ultra-sensitive insides.  He didn’t bother pushing the slip up.  Instead, he worked under its silky veil, his kisses and touches coming as a complete surprise to Benny. 

 

The air was moist and musky in here, so humid that he could barely breathe.  It was intoxicating, thick with his lover’s aroused scent.  Humid and thick with pheromones, there was no air to be had at all.  Not that that mattered right now.  All there was in his universe was that tender flesh he was kissing.

 

Fraser seemed especially vulnerable here.  As Ray kissed and nibbled the smooth perfection of his partner’s recently shaved thighs, the sounds from above increased to a desperate frenzy. 

 

Ray paused as his lips encountered a hard spot in the previously silken flesh.  His fingers moved to investigate, discovering first a slender slash, then a roundish pucker, surrounded by smaller lines of nubbled scars that could only be incision marks. 

 

“Knife?” Ray whispered, fingering the long rift.

 

“Geiger,” came the barely coherent response from above.

 

“Bullet?” Ray asked, detailing the angry pucker that was almost on top of the first, older wound.  This must have hurt like hell, Ray realized.

 

“Special Agent McFadden’s bullet,” Fraser breathed.

 

The knife wound Fraser had taken for a fellow Mountie and the bullet for the man who’d arranged his father’s murder.  Both had been borne with equal stoicism.

 

Ray had never met anyone with his friend’s raw courage.  Ray knew further up he’d find an otter scar and another knife wound.  Fraser’s heroics did not come without cost.  His friend’sexploits had left a battlefield of scars upon the otherwise perfect body.

 

Ray vividly recalled Elaine turning his injured partner on with her breathless survey of Fraser’s war wounds when she’d been treating the Mountie’s hurts after Zucco’s beating.  It was the only good memory he had of that entire event, the discovery that Fraser was human and could be aroused like any normal man.  Not that Ray had ever imagined making use of that discovery himself, as he was now.

 

His pause seemed to trouble Benny, for he felt the perfect body under him tense up.

 

A second later, Fraser tentatively questioned, “I realize that you are...accustomed to a real woman’s smoothness.  Does the presence of those scars...repulse you?  They are quite ugly.”

 

Ray didn’t have words to say what he wanted to tell his friend.  He didn’t have Fraser’s skill that way.  He didn’t know the right thing to say.  So, instead, he licked the scarred flesh, lightly at first, in case it grossed his refined friend out.

 

But he’d forgotten that Benny’s almost Victorian sensibilities were balanced by a very animalistic relationship to the outer world.  Fraser was the only human Ray had met who smelt and tasted his environment on a daily basis.  Unlike Ray, whose instinct when encountering significant evidence was to pick it up and visually examine it, Benny’s first impulse was to taste and smell the thing. 

 

Licking wasn’t going to turn a guy like that off.  To the contrary, the steady play of Ray’s tongue over that rough flesh seemed to appeal to Fraser’s basic primal instincts.

 

The tension lingered in the muscles of the leg he was holding, but it was sexual tension now.  As Ray licked those wounds, Fraser’s cock nudged the top of  his forehead with all the insistence of Diefenbaker demanding attention.

 

In the dim, musky interior of the slip draped area, Ray glanced up at the organ above.  All he could see was the stark whiteness of Benny’s underpants.  These, too, were a woman’s. 

 

Ray had almost expected Fraser to be wearing his usual boxers, but these were a discrete white, albeit lacy, pair of undies.  Taking in the unnecessary frilliness of a garment that no one besides Fraser should ever have seen, Ray was struck with the idea that perhaps Fraser had been unconsciously excited by this charade. 

 

Benny was nothing, if not practical.  There was no reason he couldn’t have worn his boxers under the panty hose.  But here he was, resplendent in a pair of panties more lacy than anything Ange had ever worn.

 

Although Ray was consumed with curiosity, he kept his questions to himself.  Above all else, Fraser was an explorer.  The man had walked parts of this planet that no living human besides himself had seen in centuries.  It was hardly surprising that his partner would chose to experience this charade of being a woman to the fullest.  And if it turned his dour friend on, even unconsciously, what did it really matter? 

 

His attention captivated by that snowy garment, Ray couldn’t resist further exploration.  He inched up under the slip a little further, then breathed a stream of hot breath across the straining front of the flimsy panties. 

 

Even in the shadowed secrecy of the slip-draped , Ray was able to see Fraser’s aroused flesh jerk under the silken material.  In fact, looking close, Ray swore he could see a dark stain of moisture forming where Benny’s cock head was pressed under the panties as precum leaked out of the excited organ. 

 

The scent of musk was stronger now, almost choking in intensity.

 

If Ray’s life had depended upon it, he couldn’t have stopped himself from sampling.  Without even thinking, he bent down and placed his mouth over that dark spot on the front of Fraser’s underwear and licked.

 

He tasted silk and salt...and Benny.

 

The cry Fraser released at that act was the loudest yet.

 

“Ray...Ray...please...” his normally composed Mountie begged.

 

The silken slip draping the area was abruptly torn away as Fraser pulled it up. 

 

Hit with the shock of more light and cool air, Ray just stayed where he was for a moment, his tongue connecting to that part of Fraser he’d so rarely seen, let alone touched.

 

Then Benny’s hands were on the back of his head, pressing him down, smooshing his nose into the material and the hard cock beneath it.

 

“Benny, Benny, slow down, baby, slow down,” Ray mumbled.

 

Fraser’s whimper as Ray pulled back a bit almost broke his heart.  The poor bastard looked frantic, like Fraser was terrified he was going to be abandoned here on the edge.

 

“Ssssh,” Ray soothed, rubbing his cheek across that hungry groin to reassure.  “It’s gonna be all right.  Just trust me, baby.  Okay?”

 

He lifted his head to meet Fraser’s gaze. 

 

The sweat-sheened, enraptured face was so unlike his normally composed Mountie that Ray barely recognized it.  Benny was suffering, bad.  

 

All that restraint Fraser practiced, didn’t come without a price tag, Ray realized.  As had been demonstrated with that bitch Victoria, when Fraser’s controls shattered, they broke all the way, leaving the man totally without defense, completely vulnerable to his lover’s whims.

 

Fortunately, this lover had nothing but Fraser’s best interests at heart.  Ray didn’t look at that loss of control as any ego-building victory.  He didn’t want Benny broken and defenseless.  He wanted to shower this man with the love and affection Fraser’s lonely heart hungered for, make that attention so much a part of Benny’s daily life that sex wouldn’t be such a huge, shattering event.  Ray wanted to remove Fraser’s fear of giving in to passion, to make sex the joyous, life-affirming ecstasy it was intended to be, something Benny would live for, instead of live to avoid.

 

“R-Ray?”  It was a child’s voice, scared and excited all at the same time.  But mostly scared at this moment.

 

“I’ve got you, baby,” Ray crooned, like he would to one of Maria’s kids when they were upset.

 

“I don’t know, I mean, how -”

 

“It’s okay.  I know what to do from here on in.  You just relax and enjoy the ride.  Is it okay if I take these off you?” Ray asked, giving the panty’s elastic waistband a tug. 

 

If the answer to that question was no, he’d work around it. 

 

He could see how frightened Benny was of his own desire.  Ray wasn’t going to push the issue and ruin things.  Though, God, how he wanted to see the man!

 

“It’s okay,” Fraser whispered, his strained features making it plain that he feared he’d just made a grave error.

 

Granted permission, Ray quickly skimmed the underpants down those long legs before Benny could change his mind.  

 

He didn’t know what he expected his reaction to this, his first sight, of his male lover’s naked genitals to be.  As little as a day ago, the idea of looking at another guy’s aroused cock would have disgusted him.  When he’d first touched Fraser and ignited like a brush fire, Ray thought he would have been consumed by a fiery lust, thrown into blood searing, teeth-rattling sexual frenzy. 

 

What the world-weary street cop would never have anticipated was the aching tenderness that ripped through him when he looked at Fraser’s groin.

 

Benny had pulled the slip just up above his pubic mound.  It rested on his flat, concave belly like a fallen shield.  Fraser’s genitals lay beneath it, bare and oddly vulnerable for all that he was visibly aroused.  Ray could almost feel the tension triple in Fraser’s body as Ray’s eyes scanned his nude body.

 

As could be expected on a man of his build, Fraser’s cock was thick and long, with a dark, sandy brown forest of pubic hair at its base that gave the pelt on Fraser’s head a run for its money when it came to thickness. 

 

Benny was uncut, blood red with an angry looking purple vein pulsing down the shaft’s length.  The balls were a pinkish affair.  As tight as they were drawn up to Benny’s body, they told Ray that it wouldn’t be long before Fraser came.

 

Ray could feel how hard it was for his partner to lie there and allow himself to be examined like this.  Always modest, this had to be killing Fraser.

 

It took two tries before he was able to clear his tight throat enough to get words out. 

 

Benny jerked at each rumbling throat clearing like Ray had just lashed him with a whip. 

 

The poor guy looked braced for desertion, like Fraser simply couldn’t believe that Ray would actually go through with this.

 

“You are, without exception, the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in my life,” Ray rumbled, his voice harsh and thick with emotion.

 

The quick, shuddery breath Fraser drew told him that his voice was working at calming  his partner’s anxieties.

 

Then Ray reached out and collected the prize into his hand.

 

Fraser cried out again at that first touch, a piercing sound, the kind a virgin might make when her hymen was penetrated. 

 

Looking up at those beautiful, enraptured features, Ray received the strong impression that this was a rare occurrence, that Fraser was hardly ever touched here in pleasure, even by himself.  There was no way to ask a question like that, not at a time like this.  It would break the mood entirely, but Ray was willing to bet that his restrained friend didn’t even frequently allow himself the comfort of his own right hand on lonely nights. 

 

It was hardly surprising, considering Benny’s repressed background.  Ray had seen the one room cabin Fraser had shared with his father.  If Benny had grown up in similar houses his whole life, shared that small space with his grandparents, privacy would have been nothing but a dream.  Masturbating in the same room with one’s granny would put a damper on even the horniest teenager’s ardor.  And it wasn’t like the kid could just go outside someplace to wank off.  Where Fraser had grown up, pulling down one’s pants outside in the winter was enough to get you hospitalized.   Then Benny had gone from that restricted life to communal barracks living. 

 

It was entirely possible that Benny had never had the opportunity to explore his body the way most teenagers did.  The poor guy had probably trained himself not to pay attention to his sexual needs, to just pretend they didn’t exist. 

 

Ray knew that the funny thing about pretending something like that was that, after a while, you began to believe it yourself.  You stopped thinking of yourself as a sexual entity and just existed in a world of safe routines.  Maybe that was why when Fraser’s passions did come out, they overwhelmed him.

 

Fraser might be overwhelmed now, but he wasn’t going to be destroyed this time.  Ray was going to see to that.

 

Carefully, as if what he held in his palm was some rare, delicate flower and not a hunk of hard, needy flesh, Ray began to explore the moist organ in his hand.  It felt good to the touch, hot, damp and alive, demanding. 

 

Ray gripped its sturdy length, the fingers of his free hand rising to trace the pulsing vein up to the tapered tip. 

 

It was here that they were the most different. 

 

Ray had never touched a foreskin before.  He had no clue as to how to handle it, how much pressure was okay pushing it back.  What would hurt, how far he could move it.  It was worse than when he’d touched Irene Zucco for the first time as a kid. 

 

His concerns almost got the better of him, but the pleading noises of pure, animal pleasure Benny couldn’t seem to keep in told him that he was doing something right. 

 

So, Ray just played with the foreskin for a few moments, getting a feel for its sensitivity as he drove his partner wild.

 

The scent rising from Fraser’s cock was out of this world, musky and clean, strong as a forest after a rain storm.  It got into Ray’s lungs and stayed there, far more cloying and arousing than the remaining traces of Benny’s Passion Flower perfume. 

 

It was a while before Ray was comfortable enough to make his next move, for, in his guts, he knew what Benny needed now.  A hand job was great, but...it wasn’t going to do the trick here. 

 

Ray had never met man or beast with the kind of oral fixation Benton Fraser had.  On an instinctive level, he sensed precisely what it was going to take to float Benny’s boat.  Ray just wasn’t certain if he was up to it.

 

This was a first time for him, too.  Although he’d done well winging the preliminaries, there were just some things he didn’t know if he was capable of doing.  Going down on another man topped the list.

 

But the time for such waffling was before he’d taken his partner to bed, he realized.  Now that they were committed...well, only a coward would pull out now.  And only a brute would deny this lonely man what he so badly needed.

 

So, one by one, Ray conquered his fears.  When he felt he had himself under control, he drew in a deep breath of cock-scented air, opened his mouth and lowered his head.

 

He was ready to gag at that first contact, but the delicate tip of Fraser’s penis entered his mouth almost timidly, almost as though Fraser sensed how difficult this was for him and was holding back, which was patently impossible.  Benny was just too far gone for such restraint.

 

Still, it wasn’t nearly as difficult as Ray was expecting it to be.  When he allowed himself to forget what he had in his mouth and simply sample the flavor, he was pleasantly surprised. 

 

Benny was salty, with a bitter under-taste that foreshadowed things to come.  It wasn’t a taste for delicate sensibilities, to be sure, but to a refined palate like Ray’s own, it was pure ambrosia. 

 

He’d always preferred dark chocolate, the bitter contrasting with the sweet, making it all the tastier for the mix.  And Benny was like a blast of Ghirardelli’s finest, rich and full, with a tart aftertaste, a flavor you could get addicted to.

 

Fraser’s groans were rough now, quite possibly the first unpleasant sounds Ray had ever heard emerge from his friend.  From the noise he was making, it sounded like Benny was being ripped apart.  And maybe he was, the pleasure seemed that intense.

 

Getting a feel for it, Ray started to suck on the tip of the cock.  Knowing that he hadn’t the skill to take that whole, impressive length, Ray curled his right fist around the rest of the shaft and started to  pump, while his left hand acquainted itself with those velvet soft balls. 

 

He soon discovered a kind of rhythm that seemed to be waiting for him.  Breathing, sucking, stroking...he lived only to pleasure that tasty organ in his mouth. 

 

As for his own pleasure - Ray felt about ready to explode in his pants.  And Benny had barely touched his body.

 

Thinking about coming in his pants, Ray was startled to realize that he himself was still practically fully dressed.  Aside from his suit jacket and tie, he hadn’t removed a single item of clothing.  He even still had his shoes on. 

 

Yet, considering the emotions he’d shared with this man, Ray had never felt as if he’d bared so much of himself to another human being before.  Benny hadn’t just seen and touched his body; Fraser had caressed his very soul.

 

And now Ray was about to take a bit of Benny into himself that he’d never imagined doing before.  The testicles under the fingertips of his left hand were drawn up tight now, no give at all as they readied to empty.  Ray braced himself to accept the outpouring.  He wondered what Benny was going to taste like.  His own semen was salty and bitter, pretty gross. 

 

But Ray had a suspicion that he was going to like the taste of Fraser’s.  Hell, there wasn’t anything about Benny he didn’t like - even the guy’s sweaty feet turned him on.

 

Ray groaned in dismay as strong hands gripped the sides of his head and forced him up.  He just barely managed to open his mouth at the last second to avoid painfully scraping that exiting cock with his teeth.  What the...

 

“Benny, what the hell are you doin’?” he demanded, too strung out to hide his irritation.

 

If Ray himself were tense, then Fraser was like the high E string on a guitar tuned too tight.  The tiniest bit more of pressure and he’d snap.  Benny’s eyes were almost tortured as they met Ray’s and the Mountie inanely explained, “I was about to...I mean...”

 

“That’s the idea, Benny,” Ray patiently explained, ready to kill or kiss the man in equal measures.  “Here, let me-”

 

“No,” Fraser prevented his head from lowering again, holding Ray’s chin up so that their eyes were locked.

 

“No?”

 

“I want, I mean...I’ve done nothing for you, Ray.” Fraser whispered, his expression as guilt-stricken as a man on the verge of orgasm could look.

 

Ray’s heart just about melted at the insane protest.  He’d been certain Fraser was too far gone to know who he was with, let alone how close his partner was to coming.  But once again, Benny had surprised him.

 

“I don’t want...to finish alone,” Fraser grated out. 

 

Benny didn’t look like he’d hold out long enough to kiss someone, let alone arouse them  to completion.

 

Fortunately, arousal wasn’t a real issue here.  Ray had been hard as a rock since their first kiss at the front door.

 

“You’re not alone, Benny,” Ray promised.  Taking Fraser’s right hand, he pressed it briefly to his own straining erection to demonstrate his point. 

 

The heat off even that flat palm was nearly enough to finish him.  Ray sobbed in a breath as he quickly forced Benny’s hand away before he popped.

 

“Together, please?” Fraser practically begged, reaching for Ray’s waist again.

 

Besieged with an inexplicable burst of self-consciousness, Ray smoothly intercepted the hands.  He wasn’t ready for this beautiful man to see him yet.  But...Fraser seemed almost crushed by his refusal.  Ray suffered that injured look as long as he could, but then released the captured wrists under the hurt, beseeching expression flashed at him.  Benny looked like Ray had just denied him something he’d spent half his life hurting for.

 

What the hell?  Sooner or later, Fraser was gonna find out what he’d gotten himself into. It might as well be sooner.  Benny had as much right to see and touch him as he did to relish Benny’s flesh, even if he wasn’t as pleasing to the senses as Fraser was. 

 

He knew that Benny was already on a hair-wire trigger, so the inevitable rejection wouldn’t be immediate.  Nothing short of an ice bath was going to cool Benny off.  If Fraser were disappointed by Ray’s body, it wouldn’t matter until after they’d come.  Then there would be all the time in the world for Benny to entertain the second thoughts most of Ray’s dates had when they got a good look at him in the sober morning light, but right now there was only the imperative to rut in Fraser’s universe.

 

Tripping over each other’s fingers, they scrabbled as one to undo Ray’s belt and zipper. 

 

Benny practically tore his pants off him when the zipper finally gave way. 

 

Ray sighed as the burst of cool night air and sudden freedom from constraint rocked through him.  His cock bobbed up like Old Nessie in those Loch Ness Monster photos, rising at almost a ninety degree angle from his body. 

 

Ray had barely had the time to wonder if his erection would shock his partner when Fraser was collecting Ray’s shaft into his palm.  In seconds, Ray found himself gripped and squeezed, his balls expertly rolled as Benny familiarized himself with his body with the Mountie’s typical thoroughness.

 

The resulting sensations were mind boggling.  Ray felt like a nuclear chain reaction was going off inside him.  Benny’s touches were assaulting his nerves with radioactive isotopes that set his entire body pinging, not just the usual pleasure centers.  Ray swore he could feel the quivers of delight those fingers started tingling straight down to his toe nails. 

 

“Oh, God, Benny,” he sobbed as Fraser’s free hand moved around to stroke over the flat globes of his ass. 

 

It was a shivery sensation, like quicksilver dancing through his veins.  He was a bottle of shaken champagne primed to explode. 

 

It was weird, but with as many lovers as Ray had had, he’d never felt anything like this.  Every touch burned delight into his flesh the way acid would pain.  Maybe it was because he was used to initiating everything, being the one who did most of the running, most of the worshipping, or maybe it was just the fact that he’d been a hair’s breadth away from coming since he’d stepped into the apartment.  Whatever the cause, those squeezes Benny was giving his cock and the hand familiarizing itself with his buttocks just about transformed Ray’s reality. 

 

Sweat was pouring out of every pore.  His silk shirt was a definite write off, not even dry cleaning was going to help the mess he was making of it.  He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, all he could do was feel and tremble under Benny’s touches.  His nerve paths just weren’t designed to handle this much pleasure.

 

A long time later, the fist gripping his cock stopped pumping and pulled him forward while the hand on his butt urged his compliance, guiding him gently, but incontestably forward. 

 

Ray was so far gone that he would have willingly lain down on his stomach and spread his legs, if that were what Fraser demanded of him.  But Benny just seemed to be shuffling him closer, up his partner’s slip-draped torso, so that Ray ended up kneeling astride Benny’s chest.

 

“I want to taste you, Ray,” Fraser practically begged.

 

“You touch me, I’ll come,” he rasped out, almost sobbing at the strain of holding back.

 

“Then I’ll taste even more of you,” Fraser dismissed. 

 

The hand on his cock urged Ray down, and before he even knew what he was doing, Ray was guiding his shaft past those lipstick smeared lips. 

 

Ray’s eyes locked on Benny’s sweat-sheened face as that delectable mouth opened wide and absorbed him.  The liquid heat of Fraser’s mouth was the most visceral jolt his system had ever encountered, even more shocking than when his own groping hand had led his teenage body into a new era of pleasure.  Every solid bone he had in his body seemed to turn to rubber, melted by the juicy furnace of Benny’s sweet mouth.

 

It was such a sensual shock to his system that he almost tumbled straight forward.  At the last possible moment, his hands jumped out to brace him on either side of Fraser’s head.  Kneeling awkwardly over Benny, he pushed his cock deeper into the waiting mouth, feeling Fraser’s flat palm on the small of his back guide his move - as though this perfect man were as anxious for the contact as Ray.

 

The wet heat almost undid him.  With a truly Herculean effort, Ray kept himself from exploding as that hot, wet mouth sucked on him, sampling him like his shaft were some exotic popsicle.  Benny was even making deep, contented “mmmm” sounds, like a kid enjoying a pop. 

 

He hadn’t expected Benny to be so utterly uninhibited, so delightfully responsive.  

 

Hell, the truth was, Ray really hadn’t expected Benny to want to touch him much at all.  Despite Fraser’s protests of not having casual sexual liaisons, Ray still fundamentally doubted that someone as all around desirable as Benton Fraser was would actively want to touch him. 

 

Ray knew what it was like to be hard up.  When anybody had gone without for as long as Fraser had, a blow job from anybody, even someone like himself, could be appealing.  

 

But this was more than simply laying back and letting Ray do all the work. 

 

Despite Fraser’s assurances to the contrary, Ray had been resigned to falling into his usual role of any port in the storm, convenient body.  He had firsthand experience with desperation, knew how lonely it was to go it alone, how anyone, even him, began to look good the closer it got to closing time. 

 

But this was different from the encounters Ray had had since his divorce.  This was active involvement.  Benny’s mouth had latched onto him like a lamb at its mamma’s teat.  Fraser was sucking him for all that he was worth, like it was the most important act of Fraser’s entire life. 

 

Benny’s extraordinary features were transformed with a reverent glow that belonged to a priest offering a host up to heaven, not a guy giving a friend a mercy fuck, which was all Ray had been able to believe this could be.  He knew that Benny never lied, that Fraser had meant every word he’d said earlier, but Ray had been disappointed too often in the past to pay more than lip service to believing someone as good looking as Fraser could seriously want him.

 

Ray gasped in shock as Fraser’s hands jumped to Ray’s butt, guiding him as he thrust down deep into his throat.  How Benny didn’t choke on his bulk, Ray didn’t know. 

 

All he knew was that it had never been this good for him before.    

 

The feel of those splayed fingers digging possessively into his butt cheeks sent an entirely different thrill coursing through his strung-out body.  Just feeling that sure grip made him want things he’d never considered, not in his wildest fantasies.  Benny could have tumbled him over and fucked him through the mattress at that point, and he wouldn’t have minded.

 

Minded?  Hell, he would have begged his partner for it, if words hadn’t been beyond him at the moment.  All he could do was watch in astonishment as his pistoning hips delivered his cock deeper and deeper into Fraser’s mouth.

 

And just as it had every time Ray began to trust, life kicked him in the teeth again. 

 

As abruptly as Fraser had commenced sucking him, he called a halt to the proceedings.  With no fore-warning at all, he was pushed away from that beautiful mouth, as if Fraser had just suddenly realized what he had his lips on.

 

Ray didn’t even try to contain his dismayed moan as he was pushed back from Fraser’s beloved mouth.

 

The insecure part of him that his father’s derision had formed practically howled with laughter at his monumental stupidity. 

 

How could he have ever believed that Benny would actually want to suck him off?  Fraser wasn’t meant for the likes of him.  They both knew that.

 

Too upset to even question the abrupt rejection, Ray simply waited.  If he’d had an ounce of pride, he’d walk right now, he knew that.  But...he wanted this too bad to even consider his self-respect. 

 

Whatever Fraser wanted him to be, he’d be.  If Fraser wanted him to lie face down on the mattress and spread his legs or kneel before him in total subjugation, Ray would do it, no questions asked. 

 

It was pathetic, but it was true.

 

Almost shaking with shame and fear, Ray finally met his partner’s gaze. 

 

He felt naked and exposed.  He was prepared for anything, including the good-looking man laughing him from his bed, as though it had all been some cruel joke. 

 

But there was no disdain in Benny’s face as he gazed up at him, nothing like it, in fact. 

 

To the contrary, Fraser looked seconds away from climax, his expression so torn with emotion as to be almost unrecognizable.

 

“I want us together,” Fraser practically stammered.  “Do you want...would you want to...finish inside me?”

 

“You mean...you want me to...fuck you?” Ray stammered in disbelief.

 

“I wouldn’t phrase it so...crudely, but,” Benny gave a nervous, aroused smile here, “but, yes.”

 

Benny was offering himself to him?   

 

Ray’s blood froze at the request, his heart pounding to a resounding thud as it seemed to stop beating. 

 

Fraser wasn’t rejecting him.  To the contrary, this most beautiful of men was asking him to...to fuck him. 

 

It was almost beyond Ray’s capacity to comprehend.  His guts twisted in knots as he stared down into that sweat-streaked waiting face.  Ray felt ashamed, totally and utterly ashamed of what he’d thought about Fraser.  Benny could no more use a friend than Fraser could steal or kick old ladies down the stairs.  It just wasn’t in this incredible man’s character makeup to use another human being.  Which meant...

 

Which meant that Benny really loved him. 

 

The universe seemed to tip on its axis. 

 

For a terrifying moment, Ray felt as though he were going to go hurtling off its edge into some dark and terrible abyss, but then the expression in Benny’s eyes caught and held him safe.  

 

There was such...adoration there, such faith.

 

Ray knew he wasn’t worthy of it, but he’d die before he’d disappoint Benny the way he himself had been disappointed in love a zillion times.

 

Shaking with need, he reached out and cupped that made up face in his palm.  “I want.  I just...not tonight.  Let’s get used to each other first, okay?”  Ray raggedly asked, going against every instinct he had. 

 

His cynical mind screamed at him to go through with it before Fraser had the chance to change his mind, but his heart recoiled from the concept of...deflowering his partner on their first night together. 

 

Ray knew he was too strung out to do it properly.  If he took Benny that way now, he’d hurt him.  That was absolutely not happening here tonight.

 

So, instead of spreading those legs and lifting them over his shoulders, Ray carefully settled himself onto Fraser’s broad body. 

 

The crush of their hard cocks together as Ray settled his erection beside Fraser’s was transformative.

 

“This okay?” he gasped, anxious.

 

He’d never seen such a look of incredulity on Fraser’s usually composed face. 

 

“It’s more than okay, Ray,” Fraser gave a loud swallow.  “It’s...wonderful.  Perfect.”

 

Almost dizzy with joy, Ray grinned and moved in for a kiss.  Touching all of himself to Benny this way, it was like coming home.  The relief at not being misunderstood was nearly as gripping as the pleasure of feeling Fraser beneath him.  He could feel Benny’s body heat burning him through the two layers of silk and cotton separating them.  And the feel of that steamy groin pressing up at his own...it was transcendental.

 

As he lost himself in the juicy depths of Fraser’s kiss, Ray’s hips fell into an undulating rhythm that seemed to have been waiting for them since the beginning of time.  It was like when they’d slow danced before, only better, because this ultimate contact was what their bodies had been hungering for, even then. 

 

Theoretically, Ray knew it shouldn’t feel this good.  They were just rubbing off against each other.  Nothing dramatic or earth shattering.

 

Yet, Ray knew his life would be forever changed by the contact.  The strong hands gripping his back were holding onto him like he were the most precious thing in the other man’s universe, almost as though Fraser were the one afraid that Ray would come to his senses and call a halt to things now.

 

But even if Ray had been so inclined, it was beyond him.  He was lost in the sensuous grip of this beautiful body that cushioned and pleasured him with a generosity of spirit Ray had never encountered. 

 

Benny was kissing him like he’d do it forever, feeding on Ray’s mouth with a driving need that rocked him to his core.

 

Fraser’s hip action was incredible.  They were so in tune, grunting and gasping as one while they humped themselves into a new reality, a new reality where there was someone warm and loving to hold onto.  Someone who would shelter and cherish, guard and protect.  Someone who loved them.

 

Finally, Ray couldn’t hold back anymore, as much as he wanted the pleasure to go on forever. 

 

The ecstasy spiked and peaked, washing over his nervous system like a warm tidal wave.  He broke their kiss with an anguished cry, then thrust down at Benny one last time. 

 

Ray’s reality erupted in a bright sensual whirl that was as red as Fraser’s uniform.  The universe contracted at the intensity of his pleasure, then exploded, spewing pieces of his blown away being all over.  For a confused moment or two, Ray feared he actually had exploded as his crushed cock spurted scalding bursts of semen between them as his body convulsed in helpless spasms.

 

A breath or two later, Fraser followed him down into dissolution.  One last thrust up, and Ray felt his belly being bathed with hot spurts of what he could only think of as liquid love, because it was coming out of Fraser.

 

They clung to each other for dear life as their bodies were immolated with passion.  The glorious convulsions seemed to grip them both forever, leaving them panting and clinging in ecstatic terror.

 

Finally, the world seemed to stop spinning.  Very slowly, reality reassembled itself into Fraser’s squalid little apartment around Ray.

 

The visceral delight of those last few spasms still coursing through his nerves, Ray stared down in disbelief at the equally stunned features of his partner.

 

Benny opened his mouth, as if to say something, then seemed to think better of it. 

 

Ray could feel the sudden tension that gripped his friend.

 

Before reality could destroy his happiness, Ray quickly bent his head for what he knew could very be their final kiss.

 

If Fraser had experienced second thoughts so soon, then Benny was going to have to be the one to pull back, to put an end to this wonderful spell into which they’d fallen.

 

But Benny only sighed into Ray’s mouth and released the tension that had tightened his form.  The powerful hands gripping Ray’s shoulders loosened their hold, flattening to caress the sweaty shirt covering Ray’s back.

 

They kissed for a long, contented time, the lethargy of afterglow growing heavier between them.

 

“Mmmmm,” Ray murmured when he felt his eyes sinking shut.

 

Only then did Fraser release his lips long enough to astutely question, “Hmmm?”

 

“... was good,” Ray mumbled. 

 

Before Ray’s insecurity could question the wisdom of making even that much of an admission, Fraser sleepily commented, “The best.”

 

They hugged and kissed some more, the long, eventful day seeming to catch up with both.  

 

Ray felt himself beginning to drift off and stopped himself with an effort.

 

This was usually where a sleepy Ray would get up, get dressed, and then drag himself home. 

 

But Benny’s arms didn’t release him.  His partner was showing no signs of growing tired of his continued presence.  Instead of dropping subtle hints that Ray’s immediate departure would be greatly appreciated, Fraser’s palms just kept absently stroking his back.

 

Ray stared down at his friend’s face, overwhelmed with emotion.  Benny’s eyes were closed.  The tuckered-out Mountie was already more than half asleep.  Ray thought that maybe he should just get up and...

 

“Are you okay?” Benny’s voice shattered Ray’s tension as Fraser’s heavy lids parted.  Sleepy blue eyes stared up at him in...open adoration.  There was just no other description for it.

 

Ray swallowed hard, then asked, “You want me to clear out?”

 

That woke Fraser up a bit.  “Are you uncomfortable here?”  Before Ray could answer, Benny was fussing, “Of course, you are.  The bed is narrow.  I’m sorry, Ray-”

 

“Benny,” Ray gently interrupted, “I just didn’t want to overstay my welcome.  You know?”

 

“Know what?”  Fraser’s brow creased with concern.  “We just...didn’t you like..?”

 

Ray stared into those guileless eyes, and felt his heart go under for the final time. 

 

Of course, Benny didn’t know the drill.  This unique man loved with his full heart, without qualifications or holding back.  There were no such things as one-night stands in Fraser’s reality.  If there were a God in Heaven, Benny would never come to know the type of mentality that kicked a lover out of his bed after a night’s passion.

 

“I liked.  Forget I said anything.  Go to sleep, baby.”

 

To his dismay, the worry didn’t leave Benny’s eyes.  “You’re not going to...leave after I fall asleep, are you, Ray?”

 

Suddenly, the words his partner had said to him when they were standing in the hallway earlier played through the cop’s memory.  The aloneness is always worse after intimacy. 

 

Well, that wasn’t going to happen to Benny tonight, not with him.

 

“I’m not going anywhere.  I promise,” he swore.

 

He let Fraser draw him down into another wet, sleepy kiss.  The taste of that succulent mouth was the last thing Ray was conscious of when sleep finally claimed him.  For all he knew, he might have drifted off while still playing lip tag with Fraser.

 

*~*~*

 

The instant his sleep fogged mind drifted back to wakefulness, Ray knew that he wasn’t home.  He was lying face down in an unfamiliar bed.  The strange mattress was hard as a rock under him.  The room was too cold to be his own, the light behind his still closed lids too bright for his southern-facing bedroom. 

 

Ray had woken up in criminals’ clutches too often to take any deviation from the norm easy.  His heart tripped into overdrive as adrenaline flooded his system.  Without opening his eyes and alerting his captors to his conscious state, Ray tried to figure out where the hell he was.  

 

His incipient panic receded as he caught a whiff of a familiar scent on the pillow he had his nose buried in.  That was Benny’s scent, with a hint of Dief’s ever-present doggish aroma thrown in for good measure.  

 

Slowly, images from the previous, unbelievable night paraded through his mind:  himself, talking Fraser into donning those women’s clothes once again; them dancing cheek to cheek at Mario’s restaurant; him driving Benny home, escorting his partner upstairs and then...and then he’d seduced the other man at the door.  The most vivid image Ray had of the whole sensual night was Benny going down on him.

 

Ray nearly groaned in horror.  What had he done? 

 

He’d seen that Benny was a little lonely...and he’d talked his way into his best friend’s bed.  What kind of lowlife did a thing like that?  Seducing someone as innocent as Benny had to be right up there with child molestation, a completely unforgivable crime. 

 

It didn’t matter to Ray that Fraser was a full-grown man and responsible for his own actions.  Ray’s conscience knew what he’d done.  He’d used his best friend, the most innocent, trusting man on the planet. 

 

At that moment, Ray hated himself as he’d never hated anyone in his whole life, including Frankie Zucco.  Frankie at least was honest in what he did; whereas he...he was the lowest of the low. 

 

If Ray had had his piece handy, he might have taken the coward’s path out and avoided the upcoming confrontation, but...even if his gun were nearby, he owed it to Benny to let the other man have the pleasure of ending his miserable existence. 

 

When he finally opened his eyes and turned his head from the pristine white pillowcase into which his face was smashed, Ray wasn’t the least bit surprised to find the other side of the narrow bed empty.  He was just about to turn over to look for his partner when the bed bounced and Ray suddenly found a white snout with a black, very wet nose in his face. 

 

Diefenbaker’s oddly intelligent eyes seemed to appraise him for a long moment, making Ray wonder if the wolf were going to beat Benny to the coup de grace.  But then Dief just gave his nose and stubbled chin a totally disgusting wash and hopped back off the bed.

 

The smell of dog slobber on his face vying with his own morning breath on a gross out scale, Ray crowed, “Eeeew, yuck.  That is totally disgusting.”

 

“I’m sorry, Ray,” came a familiar, contrite voice from across the room.

 

Fraser’s voice was emanating from the opposite direction from which Ray had been expecting it to come.  He knew his best friend.  When Fraser was upset, Benny always stared out a window, like he needed some illusion of open space to sort out his problems. 

 

Ray had dreaded what his first sight of Fraser would be like.  He’d expected to find Benny shivering there in front of the window, wearing that frilly white slip, his hair all disheveled, his make up a mess - totally, quietly distressed.  

 

Ray blinked at the reality before his eyes. 

 

Fraser was calmly seated at the breakfast table on the far side of the apartment, watching the bed with a mug of hot tea cradled between his palms.  His partner was dressed in a very masculine pair of jeans and a blue flannel lumberjack shirt.  His eyes were clear and bright, his face clean shaven and devoid of makeup.  And, most importantly, Benny was smiling at him.  Not the bright, blinding smile Ray had earned once or twice the previous night, but a rather shy, uncertain effort that twisted Ray’s guts in knots.

 

“Good morning, Ray,” the other man tentatively greeted.

 

The fear that had been twisting his heart since he’d awoken released its stranglehold as he took in his partner’s visible uncertainty.  Benny didn’t hate him.  That much was clear. 

 

If anything, Fraser looked as though he were braced for the same type of rejection Ray had expected. 

 

That changed everything.  Something melting inside him, Ray found an answering smile and replied in a low, sensual purr, “Good morning, yourself.”

 

“Did you sleep well?”  As if realizing what he’d just said, Fraser turned bright red.  “I mean, did you...”

 

Ray took pity on the man.  “I slept just fine, Benny.  You?”

 

“Very well, indeed.  I...”  Fraser’s words once again stuttered to a self-conscious halt.

 

“Is that coffee?” Ray asked, hoping to dispel some of the incredible awkwardness between them.

 

“No, it’s tea.  I’m afraid I don’t have coffee.  If you’d like some, I can run to the diner across the street.  They brew an excellent cup of-”

 

“Tea’s fine, Benny,” Ray cut in.  

 

Bemused, he watched his competent partner bounce to his feet and practically trip over himself on his way to the stove in his haste to do for him.  The kettle was already on a low jet.  Fraser raised the flame and in moments the kettle was whistling.

 

Ray slowly sat up and attempted to swing his legs over the side of the bed to join Fraser at the little kitchen table. 

 

He’d forgotten the state of his clothes.  His briefs and pants were still down around his knees, a vivid reminder of what they’d done last night.  His eyes quickly scanned the floor near the bed, looking for Fraser’s dress and pantyhose, but nothing of Miss Fraser’s wardrobe remained in sight.

 

Maybe that was how Benny wanted to play it, like nothing had happened.  If that were the case, Ray knew he’d better get his pants done up, fast. 

 

He was frantically trying to set his lower body to rights when Ray sensed his partner nearby.  He looked up to find Fraser standing beside the bed. 

 

Ray’s preparations to carry out the awkward charade of pretending nothing had occurred crashed around him.  If Fraser had wanted to play it that way, the Mountie would never have approached the bed.  Benny would have simply waited for Ray to join him at the table, where they would have made a painful effort at small talk before Ray took his overdue leave and fled the scene of the crime. 

 

Benny’s coming over here made it all real again and threw Ray into a quandary as to how to proceed. 

 

Their gazes fluttered away from each other like butterflies too nervous to light, but after a few breaths, blue dared hazel.  Their eyes tentatively touched and held. 

 

Benny gulped noisily, then slowly eased his butt down onto the mattress, watching Ray as though he expected to be shouted off the bed.  When there was no vocal eruption, Fraser tentatively offered his partner the second mug he held in his left hand.

 

Equally ill at ease, Ray accepted the cup with murmured thanks and stared down into its steaming depths.  Startled, Ray took in his drink’s light tan color.  Benny had sweetened and lightened the tea to Ray’s preferences.  This guy was so thoughtful in everything he did that Ray felt in danger of falling all over again.

 

“Do you regret last night, Ray?”

 

The gentle, unexpected question nearly propelled him out of his skin.  His tea teetered perilously, threatening to douse both himself and the bed.  A callused hand briefly settled around his own, steadying the cup.  The heat off Fraser’s palm burned him like acid.   

 

His heart racing, he met those mild, accepting eyes as Fraser waited for his answer. 

 

That was Benny, forthright and brave to the very last.  Unfortunately, Ray hadn’t been raised that way.  Where honesty had figured highly in Fraser’s upbringing, self-protection had overshadowed Ray’s own.  A child of the street, Ray answered as he’d been raised to - with a question of his own.  “Do you?”

 

Give nothing away, reveal no hint of vulnerability, that was how you stayed alive in situations like this.  How Fraser had made it to this age without learning that key to survival mystified him. 

 

He could only stare in amazement as his partner struggled to answer his question, daring to go first.

 

“No, Ray.”

 

“You don’t?” he couldn’t hide his amazement.

 

Fraser gave a slow, almost weary shake of his head.  His eyes were very wide, his expression...strange.  There was something like resignation there, like Fraser had just seen his worst fears realized and was doing his best to carry on and get through it.  Even so, his partner still looked as though he’d taken a fatal hit.

 

“No, Ray, I don’t, but obviously, you have...some reservations,” Fraser softly offered before asking, “Is it different now that I am no longer...a woman?”

 

“What?” Ray blinked, that the last question he was expecting.  He didn’t even know what Benny meant by it.

 

“Was it the dress, Ray?  Did the fact that I was clothed as a woman make it acceptable for you to...be intimate with me?”

 

Ray stared into those deeply troubled eyes.  Leave it to Fraser to come up with some bizarro scenario like that. 

 

Sighing, Ray swiftly laid that worry to rest, “Don’t get me wrong, Benny, you looked great in the dress, but...it wasn’t enough to turn a guy around like that.”  The instant Fraser’s brow crinkled, Ray knew his bumpkin of a partner had gotten lost in the colloquialism, so he clarified, “What I mean is, it was the package itself that got to me, not the fancy wrappings, okay?”

 

Fraser seemed to take a moment to decipher his meaning before giving a surprised, “Oh.”  Those expressive blue eyes studied Ray’s face for a moment, then commented, “But you still appear troubled.”

 

Ray considered dissembling, going the self-protective route all the way, but...this was Benny he was dealing with here.  This kindest of human beings wasn’t going to crucify him for being human. 

 

So Ray gathered up his nerve and quietly admitted, “I thought I’d blown it, Benny.  I was sure you were gonna hate me...”

 

If anything, his explanation seemed to further bewilder his partner.  “But...you fell asleep in the shelter of my arms.  I honestly don’t know what I could have done differently to make you feel more welcome, Ray.”

 

True enough.  This man had offered him his virginity.  You didn’t get much more of a welcome than that, Ray acknowledged, at a loss as to how to explain his doubts.  But he owed it to Benny to try. 

 

“It wasn’t you, Benny.  You were...you were fantastic - a dream come true.”

 

“Then why..?”

 

“Dreams don’t come true for me,” he said at last.  “With the track record I’ve had...well, let’s just say that on the rare nights someone wants me to stay, they usually can’t get rid of me fast enough once they get a good look at me in the morning light.”

 

“I know what you look like in the morning light, Ray,” Fraser said softly, then added more firmly.  “I like what you look like in the morning light.”

 

“Yeah, well, there’s no accounting for some people’s tastes,” Ray said, but he said it with a small smile. 

 

“I happen to possess an extremely sensitive palate.  Take my word for it.  You taste good, Ray, all over.”

 

Ray shuddered as those words shimmered through him.  His street smarts deserted him under such open appreciation.  He simply didn’t know how to deal with this.  Being wanted for who and what he was was so outside his experience that he felt as out of place in this scene as he had on the tundra outside Fraser’s cabin.  But now, as then, there wasn’t any place else in the world that he’d rather be.  So, he just let the quiet exist between them for a while, not filling it with words, just sharing it with Benny.

 

As he basked in Fraser’s bright gaze, Ray could feel something stirring deep inside him, something that he’d mourned for dead years ago.  It had been so long since hope had flared in his soul that it took Ray a while to recognize the emotion for what it was.

 

The resurgence of that long-lost feeling gave Ray the courage to ask this honest man the 64 Thousand Dollar Question. 

 

Dealing with someone like Benny, you took a chance, for you always got the truth.  Fraser would soften it with politeness, but ultimately, there were no prevarications. 

 

His jangled nerves made Ray phrase it almost as a joke, but as with so much in humor, there was truth lurking right below the lightness, “So, Benny, did your sensitive palate like that taste enough to want to sample it again sometime?” 

 

He held his breath as he waited for Fraser’s response.  Every signal Benny had put out this morning had told him Fraser wouldn’t be averse to the idea, but...Ray had been wrong in situations like this before.  Dead wrong.

 

The serious set to Benny’s blindingly handsome face made him think that maybe he’d made another horrible miscalculation here.  How could someone appear so...severe if they were okay with an idea. 

 

If Ray didn’t know better, he’d almost say that his partner looked scared or worried behind that outer facade. 

 

His nerveless hands readily gave up the tea mug as Fraser pried it from his fingers.  Tense as a drawn bowstring, he watched Fraser carefully deposit both cups on the night table in that fastidious manner of his before Benny turned back to meet his gaze.

 

Ray was trembling so deep inside that he thought he’d shatter from the suspense. 

 

Christ, couldn’t Benny just say he wasn’t interested?  Did he have to draw it out like this?

 

Those earnest eyes caught Ray and pinned him, like a bug on a needle in one of those icky museum exhibits. 

 

Ray had forgotten what it was to breathe when Fraser finally answered, “If it’s all the same to you, Ray, I’d rather not sample the taste.  I’d much prefer to become a connoisseur.”

 

It took an eternity for Ray to realize that it wasn’t a no.  That it was, in fact, as far away from a no as it was possible to get. 

 

“A...you would?”

 

“Yes, Ray, if you’re agreeable to the idea?”

 

It was a testament to his partner’s modesty that Fraser actually looked as though he believed that he might be turned down.  Like anyone, man or woman, could turn away from this incredible man!

 

“These connoisseurs, they’ve got to explore their area of expertise for years, don’t they, Benny?” Ray asked allowing that reborn feeling of hope to fill his smile.

 

Benny responded to it immediately, all of the seriousness and tension seeming to seep from his features, leaving behind that flirtatious playfulness that Ray was only now beginning to recognize as having colored a good deal of Fraser’s conversations with him from the very start.

 

With mock severity, Fraser replied, “More than years, Ray.  A good connoisseur spends a lifetime learning his area of expertise.”

 

“A lifetime?” Ray nearly choked on the word.  Benny wanted to spend his life tasting him?

 

“If one intends to do it right,” Fraser tentatively offered.  Benny’s features were carefully schooled, but his eyes still looked like he was waiting to be turned down.

 

“You, ah, took an oath about maintaining the right, didn’t you?” Ray whispered, unwilling to chance his luck with too loud a declaration.  This couldn’t be happening to him.  Happy endings were for other people, not Ray Vecchio.

 

But, apparently, Benton Fraser wasn’t aware of that particular rule of the universe, for Benny graced him with one of those rare, high-voltage grins and nodded.  “I did.  It’s our motto, you know.  Maintain the right.” 

 

“Then who am I to stand between a Mountie and his motto?”

 

Ray hadn’t finished speaking when Fraser was sliding over to start his maintaining, eagerly embarking on the course of becoming a connoisseur of Raymond Vecchio. 

 

Fraser was so fresh and clean smelling that it made Ray’s head spin.  The guy was like a burst of spring sunshine.  Benny was definitely solar hot, Ray thought as his partner crawled on top of him.

 

Benny started by tasting his mouth, morning breath and all.  A definite yuck factor in Ray’s book, but his friend’s ultra-sensitive palate didn’t seem the least disturbed by it.

 

Ray didn’t know where any of this was going to lead, but he was sure as hell going along for the ride, for as long as it lasted.  For that lifetime Fraser was talking about, if Benny could hack it that long. 

 

With a contented sigh, Ray gave his often-shattered heart over to Fraser’s maintenance.  He was sure of nothing in this world but the man snuggling down on top of him.  If anyone could restore faith to the hopeless, it was Benton Fraser.

 

Willing to be converted, Ray gave himself over to the Mountie’s safe-keeping, knowing that he’d never been in better hands.

 

 

 

The End

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
